L’Art au XXe siècle, II. L’art contemporain

No one doubts the second half of the XXth century has a unique place in the history of art given the great diversity of its manifestations. In order to make some sense out of this jungle, the formula of the didactic manual – even if it discourages the purists – is very useful. The version suggested by Hazan is quite well designed. Rather than being a simple phone book of artists, a chronological list or even a scaning of the «movements», it mixes up the entries. Following an approach by key-words (informality, land art, color-field painting), then by location (New York, London, Milano at the moment of New realism, Cassel for his Documenta, Bilbao for its Guggenheim, Shanghai), it covers some sixty artists, from Marina Abramovic to Andy Warhol. One may feel the choices went too often towards Italy (there is an article on Rome but not on Paris, one on Gianni Colombo but not on Buren) and there are a few needless repetitions in the captions but the contents are well illustrated and generally clear. >L’Art au XXe siècle, II. L’art contemporain, collective work, Hazan, 2007, 384 p., ISBN : +, 27 €