Artists don't make objects. Artists make mythologies.

Host: The warehouse was vast, silent, and half-lit — a cathedral of dust, shadow, and unfinished sculptures. The moonlight seeped through broken windows, falling on sheets of metal, blocks of marble, and splashes of color long dried into memory. In one corner, a single lamp hummed softly, its light flickering over the faces of two people sitting among the ruins of creation.

Jack sat on an overturned crate, his hands streaked with paint, his shirt rolled up to the elbows. His eyes, grey and analytical, watched the world as though it were a puzzle to be solved.

Jeeny stood by an unfinished sculpture — a hollow sphere of clay, cracked along its surface — her fingers tracing its fault lines like someone reading Braille from the soul.

Jeeny: “Anish Kapoor once said, ‘Artists don’t make objects. Artists make mythologies.’”

Jack: grinning faintly “A neat sentence. But let’s be honest, Jeeny — that sounds like a sales pitch for art galleries. Mythologies don’t pay the rent.”

Jeeny: “That’s because you still think of art as an object, Jack. But Kapoor meant something deeper. A mythology isn’t about money — it’s about meaning. It’s the story that lives behind the object, the world it creates in the mind.”

Host: A gust of wind slipped through a cracked window, stirring a curtain of dust that danced in the light like a brief ghost.

Jack: “So what? A story behind a painting, a concept behind a mirror sculpture — it’s all part of the marketing, isn’t it? You give it a name, some mystery, and people start to believe it’s something more than it is.”

Jeeny: “You think belief is marketing?”

Jack: “Sometimes, yes. The entire modern art world runs on belief. People see a pile of bricks, and suddenly they call it visionary because someone famous put it there. Mythology, Jeeny, is just another word for branding.”

Jeeny: quietly, but with fire in her tone “No, Jack. Mythology is what survives when branding dies.”

Host: The lamp buzzed louder, its filament trembling. The shadows of their figures stretched across the floor, long and uncertain, like the memory of a dream they hadn’t finished having.

Jack: “You romanticize too much. Let’s talk facts. Michelangelo was paid by the Church. Warhol painted for commerce. Kapoor sells his mirrors for millions. You tell me — where’s the mythology in that?”

Jeeny: “The mythology isn’t in the transaction, Jack. It’s in what the work does to the mind. When Michelangelo carved David, he wasn’t just shaping marble — he was carving the idea of human courage against divine power. When Warhol painted soup cans, he made us see the banality of mass production as something sacred. Mythology begins when the ordinary becomes symbolic.”

Jack: leaning back, his eyes narrowing “So myth is just another way of saying people project their fantasies onto things.”

Jeeny: “Exactly — but that’s what makes it beautiful. We are the only creatures who can invent meaning. Artists don’t make things, they make portals. Every object is just the door — the myth is what’s on the other side.”

Host: Jeeny’s voice echoed softly in the cavernous space, mingling with the faint sound of rain tapping the roof.

Jack: “So when Kapoor makes a giant mirror, what’s the myth there? People staring at their own faces, thinking they’re looking into the universe?”

Jeeny: smiling slightly “Maybe that’s exactly the myth — the illusion that we are both the center and the void. His mirrors don’t just reflect us; they swallow us. They say: You are what you see, and what you see is nothing but you. That’s a myth as old as Narcissus.”

Jack: “Then why do people need artists? If myth is already in us, if belief is the raw material, why do we need someone else to shape it for us?”

Jeeny: “Because most people don’t know how to listen to their own silence.”

Host: The lamp flickered again, and for a brief second, Jeeny’s face appeared golden, her eyes deep, reflecting the sculpture beside her — cracked, unfinished, yet alive.

Jack: “You sound like a poet. But maybe that’s the problem — art’s become too much poetry, not enough craft. You can call anything a myth, and suddenly it’s art. There’s no standard anymore.”

Jeeny: “Do you really believe that? That standards make art? Then the cave painters in Lascaux weren’t artists — they were just people with pigment and instinct. But what they made wasn’t just hunting scenes. They created a myth — the idea that the animal, the human, and the spirit were one. They didn’t know the term ‘art.’ They just knew they were touching eternity.”

Jack: softening slightly “So you think every artist is a kind of priest?”

Jeeny: “Yes. But not one who preaches. One who reveals. An artist doesn’t tell you what to believe; they show you what it feels like to exist.”

Host: Jack’s gaze fell to the floor, where streaks of color had hardened into strange patterns — accidental, yet somehow deliberate. He rubbed his thumb over a smear of blue, as though testing its truth.

Jack: “You know… I used to paint once.”

Jeeny: “I know.”

Jack: “I stopped when I realized no one cared. You pour your soul into a canvas, and people just see color. They don’t see the myth, they see a product.”

Jeeny: “Maybe you stopped too soon. Mythologies take time. Sometimes centuries. No one cared about Van Gogh either. He died with his art unsold. But now his madness is our mythology — a story about loneliness, beauty, and the price of seeing too much.”

Jack: his voice cracking slightly “So you’re saying my failure might just be a myth in progress?”

Jeeny: “Maybe it already is.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, the sound filling the warehouse with a kind of music — erratic, alive, almost like applause.

Jack: “But how do you know, Jeeny? How do you know when something becomes a myth and not just a mistake?”

Jeeny: “You don’t. You never do. That’s the faith of creation. The artist isn’t supposed to know — only to make. The myth comes after, when someone else feels what you felt.”

Jack: “So it’s not about truth, it’s about transmission.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Truth is just one of the many stories myth wears to survive.”

Host: The lamp flickered once more — then went out. Only the moonlight remained, silver and soft, spilling over their faces like a quiet blessing.

Jeeny: whispering “Artists don’t make objects, Jack. They make mirrors for humanity to see its own ghosts.”

Jack: after a long silence “And what if we’re afraid of what we see?”

Jeeny: “Then the myth has done its job.”

Host: For a moment, neither spoke. The warehouse was filled only with the sound of the rain and the faint echo of their breathing. Then, almost reluctantly, Jack stood and walked to the unfinished sculpture. He ran his hand along its cracks, and for the first time, he smiled — not because it was perfect, but because it was alive.

The lamp flickered back to life, dim but steady, and the room seemed to breathe again — full of imperfection, full of myth.

Fade out.