Benjamin Olivennes gives us here an analysis and a documented panorama of what he himself calls “another twentieth century, another history of art”. In this joyfully polemical text, Benjamin Olivennes castigates the “official” history of art which condemns to the moans all those who would have the impudence not to prostrate themselves in front of what is agreed to call “contemporary art” and would reluctantly consider the ideologies that support it.

But the interest of the book is not only in the criticism and denunciation of what Benjamin Olivennes does not hesitate to designate as a “scam”, it is also in the act of proposing to the reader a sensitive and personal constellation of known or less known artists, heritages, of testimonies, which from Jean-Baptiste Sécheret to Chiara Gaggiotti reconcile us serenely with painting.

 Benjamin Olivennes, L’Autre Art contemporain, Paris, Grasset, 2021