According to what George Dickie has taught us, these days any artefact can be deemed a work of art as long as the « art world » chooses to consider it as such.
One of the goals of this book is to explore the diverse ways in which artists ranging from Marcel Duchamp, to video art experts, to Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and the « minimalists » have contributed to today's broad notion of what constitutes an artistic work.
In retracing this development, the author is actually relating the entire post-1912 history of modern art, inasmuch as what we call « contemporary » art is one of its inseparable parts.

Jean-Luc Chalumeau, an art critic and author of numerous major works on modern art, is also the founding director of the magazine Verso Arts et Lettres. Formerly a senior lecturer at « Sciences Po » and the École nationale d'administration (ENA), he is currently teaching the History of Contemporary Art at Institut supérieur des carrières artistiques (ICART).