When I was at art school, as punishment (I suspect) for handing on a project what was a very quickly cobbled together the piece of crap (being honest) my tutor out put this particular artwork into our end of year show. It was absolute nonsense - no meaning or substance to it at all.
We had to take turns sitting on the gallery to make sure noone stole (??) anything.
I was almost peeing myself listening to people analysing my images of chickens (yes chickens) and pop guns (don’t ask - I assume alcohol was involved) - I forget the series title - and the deep meanings they attributed to them. I got some nice comments too on my visitors book…
So yes, artsy folk sometimes take the mickey and see how far they can go before the audience say ‘oh come on!!!’.