Masterpieces of the 21st Century

Whereas the craftsmen of the Middle Ages completed their apprenticeships with the production of a masterpiece, in the 19th century, with the advent of the museum, the masterpiece took on its full dimension. The modern art avant-garde then diverted from it. However, this notion is re-emerging in the first quarter of the 21st century, and we can already take a critical look at it through the contemporary creations that illustrate it so perfectly. The fifty masterpieces gathered in this book are approached through the prism of contemporary issues raised by, among other things, our cohabitation with robots, the relationship we have with artificial intelligence, the flow of images and the processing of our data. For the masterpieces of the third industrial revolution, those that emerge from both the use and the critique of science and innovation technologies, offer us as many readings of today's digital world. Analyzing each creation allows us to consider what, possibly, makes it a masterpiece.
ARTISTS: Memo Akten, Refik Anadol, Cory Arcangel, Ed Atkins, Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil, Adam Basanta, Valérie Belin, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Grégory Chatonsky, Ian Cheng, Kate Cooper, Douglas Coupland, Heather Dewey-Hagborg, Disnovation.org, Pascal Dombis, Justine Emard, Félicie d'Estienne d'Orves & Éliane Radigue, Cao Fei, John Gerrard, Andreas Gursky, Michael Hansmeyer, Camille Henrot, Pierre Huyghe, Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis, Eduardo Kac, Oliver Laric, Mark Leckey, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, LuYang, Christian Marclay, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Katja Novitskova, Trevor Paglen, Julien Prévieux, Jon Rafman, Steve Reich / Gerhard Richter & Corinna Belz, Tabor Robak, Evan Roth, Rafael Rozendaal, Thomas Ruff, Arcangelo Sassolino, Michele Spanghero, Samuel St-Aubin, Jennifer Steinkamp, Hito Steyerl, Amalia Ulman, Penelope Umbrico, Corinne Vionnet, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu, Du Zhenjun.
Dominique Moulon is a professor in creative technology, independent curator and art critic. Holder of a PhD in Arts and Sciences of the Art, he is a member of the International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) and the International Association of Art Critics (AICA).