Contemporary art is the fastest growing and most volatile sector in the last decade. In 2014, it represented almost half of the market for paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, which is a remarkable percentage compared to the late eighties when its weight was small and its commercial value very unpredictable. The works of more than thirty-six thousand artists were sold at auction, but the market takes place on a small number of them (Francis Bacon, Roy Lich, Andy War, Zeng Fanzhi...). These artists are recognized in the history of art, their production is limited but sufficient to feed the market, and it concentrates the interest of many wealthy western collectors. 

Contemporary art has continued to give prominence to recurring polemics in recent years. But the essence of what motivates them seems to be a misunderstanding of the term “contemporary.” This, in fact, would benefit from being taken in the sense not of a moment of artistic evolution, corresponding to a periodization, but of a “genre” of art homologous to what was the painting of history in the classical age. Thus, just as in music it is easily admitted that “contemporary music” is a genre, coexisting today with other musical genres, so it would be admitted that several genres, including that of “contemporary art,” can coexist in current artistic production. We will soon talk, and it will be simpler, about the art of the twentieth century.

In order to accept this proposal, it must obviously be considered that, in the expression “contemporary art,” “contemporary” does not in fact refer to a chronological division (covering everything that is currently produced), but to a generic or categorical division (covering what has certain characteristics, aesthetic and extra-aesthetic). From this perspective, Duchamp's ready-made works (but not his paintings) or Malevich's monochromes are part of contemporary art, although they have been produced in a modern context, while many of today's works are not part of contemporary art.
In today's world, the so-called contemporary art is an easy point of recognition: it makes it possible to exhibit a sign of culture that spares the effort to acquire one, by collecting cultural logos (stripes, monochromes, tiles of earthenware, etc.) as at the other end of the social scale young people collect brands (Nike, Lacoste, etc.). The only difference: money. Swallowing up crazy sums for a white canvas (Yasmina Reza made it a famous theater play - demagogic at will) proves the fortune, prodigality, and daring of the purchaser.

There he made a sacrifice to modernity. We continue to dream of a vanguard, as if it were to be part of the artistic field as an imperative sine qua non, when we see its disappearance. We continue to believe in the image of the isolated painter and faced with speculators, while we have the example of the enrichment of the best known artists and we know that they are also great collectors, even brokers. We continue to assume that a mass audience is present and to attempt educational actions, while we know that it is increasingly absent from the artistic scene.

In fact, the image of modern art, which is maintained through the media of all sorts, contributes to discrediting contemporary art; the present is judged in the light of the past, where the criteria of value remained, where “modernity” was identified and held as a whole in the concept of “avant-garde” where art, it seemed, assumed its critical function.

Would we now have lost all measure, all judgment and all idea of values? Is it a long decadence that awaits us, or is it necessary, to grasp contemporary reality, to use a completely different model?
The art spectator, for twenty years, is impatient to see nothing coming: his ration of flagrant novelty is lacking. But here, once again, we should attack the principles. The history of art, which develops without exercising the slightest self-criticism on itself, always imagines itself to be governed by laws that it has long since revoked. Thus, the notions of “decadence” and “rebirth” are still more or less common, which is truly astonishing, considering that we have been witnessing for half a century the systematic revaluation of the so-called “decadent” or “derivative” periods, to the detriment of so-called “rebirth” or “creative” epochs. The art which had been dedicated to general contempt by calling it “mannerist” has become the object of a justified cult, and it is now only the editors of the Larousse to believe in its pernicious influence on the youth of schools.