Maybe, but all of those are context-dependent and can operate at high levels of abstraction. The beholder needs to be able to recognize them to appreciate them. A Rothko or Pollock has those things, but that doesn’t make them automatically appreciated. Assuming you’re from a western culture, listen to some Thai classical music and see how obvious the beauty is to you.

Truly, they do not belong in our True Intellectual kingdom. We must close the gates to keep them out!

What taxes or subsidies are you talking about?? The Halberstadt project is funded on voluntary donations by people who want to see it happen.

It’s not clear what’s making you angry about one obscure performance of an obscure piece of music, but you might have more in common with Cage than you imagine. Cage described himself as an anarchist, and pieces like 4’33” are, in part, a commentary on the rules of music that make fun of establishment. Maybe he’s saying the same thing you are about the emperor’s clothes.

What do you think about the state of music? Do you also feel that since the 19th century it has only been down hill?

> The fact that this modern "art" needs to be subsidized by the people that actually works with their taxes, is all the argument needed to tell you that indeed this is nothing more than fake intellectualism.

When exactly did art not need financial support from the State, or rich patrons, to be able to be made?

You are moving the discussion into a completely different territory now, and again showing how your view of art is principled in some kind of "productivity" measurement, which is so absurd that is not even wrong.

> I'm not missing on absolutely anything by not appreciating a banana glued to a wall. In fact, nobody really appreciates that, it's just a bunch of sycophants pretending they have some artistic knowledge the rest of us, the poor populace, lack, that go on pretending with the charade.

The banana glued to a wall is one work of art (and polemic for a reason), and you are using that to paint a broad stroke over all contemporary art as if there is nothing being told there... You don't know what you are missing exactly because you don't know what it is, you wouldn't know the colours you'd be missing if you were born with black-and-white sight, nor would know you are missing music if you were born deaf. The difference is that you are not born with an unchangeable characteristic to not appreciate art in different ways, you can work on that, you just choose not to.

There's no charade, the actual charade is why are you so vitriolic opposed to something you do not even understand, lol. It reeks of some sort of insecurity, since you do not understand you feel it's beneath you because makes you feel lesser that others might "get it" and you are out of the club? I don't know, look inside you to find an answer because the passionate rage about something you do not understand has deeper roots.