I had the illuminating experience of seeing, up close and personal, a multimillion dollar collection of abstract art. It has been collected by the head of Paine Webber. I have also toured the MOMA in Manhattan.
While I believe those who say they enjoy abstract art, I have concluded that the primary skill demonstrated by these highly compensated artists is marketing. Staring at one representative example, I cannot imagine creating something so repellent and getting someone else to pay me millions for it. That is true genius.
Yes, it is marketing, exactly.
It also allows people with no talent for art to make "art". Most of the modernists who have produced 'fashion art' have been increasingly unable to draw. They can't draw hands, they can't execute an accurate line.
Someone else here on FR commented on a cover by Rockwell, in which he depicted a group of students at an art museum looking at a Riopelle. rockwell did an excellent imitation of Riopelle; but Riopelle could not have done an imitation of Rockwell without exposing his inability to manage a complex representational picture; much less hands.