The kind of self licking ice cream market you describe where it’s a con and everyone’s in on the con are not stable. For an example of the collapse of one see the market for stamps and stamp collections. People used to buy stamps as investments and criminals used to treat them as reasonable currency substitutes, like bearer bonds except for much higher than face value. Now the market is flooded with the collections of the deceased and the price has collapsed so much people buy stamps so they can use interesting stamps to mail their wedding invitations.
Markets are robust to having very large portions of their demand being transactional, people who are in it to make a profit. But gallerists, curators and agents are overwhelmingly art lovers themselves. No doubt there are plenty of people who are in art to make money but there are many, many more who love art or who are buying art to gain social status (not mutually exclusive motives) than grifters. At the top of any field you’re going to find remarkably few pure grifters. It’s a lot easier to work 60 or 80 hours a week if you like or love your work. Lots of people love art and some of them even make a living at it.
Markets are robust to having very large portions of their demand being transactional, people who are in it to make a profit. But gallerists, curators and agents are overwhelmingly art lovers themselves. No doubt there are plenty of people who are in art to make money but there are many, many more who love art or who are buying art to gain social status (not mutually exclusive motives) than grifters. At the top of any field you’re going to find remarkably few pure grifters. It’s a lot easier to work 60 or 80 hours a week if you like or love your work. Lots of people love art and some of them even make a living at it.