Stuffed sharks, mega-bucks and trophy art | Richard Morrison - Times Online: commissions – some of them jaw-droppingly sneaky. “The art world, ” he says, “is the least transparent and least regulatedwhenever the public reads that a pile of detritus labelled “art” has been flogged for millions, or won the Turner Prizethan making money? As Thompson points out, the contemporary art market has now degenerated into “a competitive high-stakesfuelled by great amounts of money and ego”. But if modern art is all amount money and status, what’s the point of itbag labelled “Look how rich I am!” and hang it on your wall. It would make the same statement. Or, for upwardsmetaphor for the brain-dead, money-fixated world of modern art that Thompson so devastatingly exposes. Ah yes