History Main / TrueArtIsIncomprehensible

** The gag is taken further in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E2TheFiresOfPompeii The Fires of Pompeii]], when the TARDIS materialises in Ancient Rome and promptly gets sold off as a modern art piece to a nouveau riche marble merchant.

* Semi-subverted in ''Film/ShortCircuit 2''; after escaping from an attempt to sell him and landing in an open-air modern art gallery, Johnny 5 is mistaken for an exhibit by a high-class couple apparently well-versed in this trope. The subversion comes when they dismiss him as a bad and ugly attempt at "TrueArt", spending not even 5 minutes studying him before moving on to something more appealing.

* {{Parodied|Trope}} by a commercial where an artist is discussing a canvas which you do not see until halfway in, trying to say it represents the helplessness of life. The canvas was revealed as blank white. The girl he was trying to explain it to gives a deadpan response of "You ran out of cash and the store wouldn't take a check. Right?" the artist responds "Right."

** In the episode "Wacky Deli", Ralph Bighead ends his cartoon series ''WesternAnimation/MeetTheFatheads'' (based on his own parents) so he can leave animation to create what he believes is true art (without keeping in mind that masterpieces are subjective). He finds out he has to create a new animated show to get out of his contract and has Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt create it, hoping their lack of experience would result in a messy disaster that wouldn't get past a pilot episode. However, ''JustForFun/WackyDelly'', the show they create, [[SpringtimeForHitler turns out to do the complete opposite]]. Ralph stops at nothing to eradicate what he believes to be nothing but popular schlock that's ruining his chance to be a "serious" artist, but his sabotage only makes the show inexplicably ''more'' popular. Rocko convinces him that as long as it's his own creation, its art and Ralph finally puts passion into it. It soon has [[JumpingTheShark jumped the shark]], people hate it, and it gets cancelled. Ralph then declares he will show them true art and spends the next several years sculpting his "masterpiece", a gigantic still life of a bowl of fruit. Even then, he learns that people ''still'' remember him not as an artist, but as the guy who "ruined" the "Wacky Delly" show.

* On an episode of the crime series ''Series/{{Monk}}'', Monk is mocked by a formal art class for his paintings, as they are painted in accordance to his particular compulsions and tics. After an art collector buys one of his paintings, he thinks he's brilliant, though others have a hard time agreeing with him, and even going so far as to offer his therapist a painting in exchange for a session. [[spoiler:It turns out the "art collector" was just a man who wanted the canvas, as the paint could be washed off for the real target--the canvases were made of the exact same paper they print money on. Counterfeit to the max, '80s style!]]

** Alluded to in her review of ''Film/FreddyGotFingered,'' where she notes Creator/RogerEbert's theory that it might one day be seen as neo-surrealist dadaist cinema.

** Co-creator SteveDitko also voiced his disdain for pop-art in issues of ''The ComicBook/BlueBeetle'' and ''ComicBook/TheQuestion'', even creating a villain named [[StrawCharacter Boris Ebar]], an art critic and liberal politician who used pop art to spread decadence. Ditko's reasoning for Ebar's motivation was that he, hippies, and liberals weren't "manly" enough to appreciate traditional art.

* Done in an episode of ''Series/GetSmart''. Agent Smart goes on a long discussion about a painting that looks like a corner of an empty room with a small black dot on it. He says the painting is an allegory for an individual's sense of insignificance in an indifferent world, pointing to the dot as representing mankind. Then the dot flies off. There's also the heap of junk entitled "A Heap of Junk".

-->'''Rimmer''': ''(about a small, cubic object on the wall)'' Now this three-dimensional sculpture in particular is quite exquisite. Its simplicity, its bold, stark lines... pray, what do you call it?\\

* The ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' {{DLC}} "Kasumi's Stolen Memory" has one that's apparently due to CultureClash. You encounter a turian abstract sculpture that ClassyCatBurglar Kasumi says is simple and doesn't make sense, and therefore rarely makes it off Palaven, but to turians it's a masterpiece.

* ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' allows players to build immense projects known as Mega Structures, such as a DysonSphere or a RingWorldPlanet. As several {{Precursor}} civilizations have come and gone, some ruined Megastructures can be found, and restored to a more functional state. One such structure is the Mega Art Installation, and the FlavorText for a Ruined Mega Art Installation says it all really:

* The ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad!'' episode "Lincoln Lover" briefly features an incomprehensible play about Abraham Lincoln, wherein an obese man dressed in underpants and a stovepipe hat tosses joints of meat around the stage while reciting advertising slogans.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague''

* On one of the few occasions where Linda sees what her sons ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'' have built, Phineas, Ferb, and Candace had gone somewhere else, so Linda didn't realize that it was Phineas and Ferb who built the contraption.