Comedian, author and art collector Steve Martin tries very hard to share his knowledge of art with Stephen Colbert this week. Martin is doing the rounds to promote his new book, An Object of Beauty. The two never really get around to talking about the book directly, in which Martin writes about an art collector and the development of her eye for collecting art work. But in goofing around, Colbert teases out an indirect discussion of the process of art collection.

Martin is familiar with contemporary artists featured in the second clip, but while he appreciates their amusing gags to make not-art into something-close-to-art, it’s clear this is not quite enough and that art worthy of collection really requires something more than a can of spray paint or a marker or even the imprimatur of a recognized artist or collector.