Robert Fleck Questions Modern Art's Legacy in New Book

Robert Fleck's book 'Y aura-t-il un deuxième siècle de l'art moderne ?' (Will There Be a Second Century of Modern Art?), published by Éditions Pleins Feux, examines the relationship between modern and contemporary art. Fleck, director of the École Régionale des Beaux-Arts de Nantes and a critic involved in promoting living art, analyzes four disparate cases: Documenta X, post-communist art (originally published in the Manifesta 2 catalog, for which Fleck was co-curator in 1998), art-institution relations in France, and the marginalization of painting. He argues that the consequences of modern art have not been fully explored by theorists and critics, and that much contemporary creation is an unacknowledged revisitation of modern forms, especially in painting, which survives through photography, video, and screen art. The book's final chapter on painting synthesizes various art forms, revealing a conservative, continuity-driven mindset.