Summary: | The role and number of intermediaries involved in the process of artistic mediation tend to be all the more important as the art world becomes more autonomous, ruled by specific values, words and actions. This is particularly obvious in the case of contemporary visual arts, as this paper demonstrates. The example of a French member of the Nouveaux Réalistes movement helps to map the various categories of persons, institutions, gestures, objects owing to which a piece of scrap may be offered the career of an authentic work of art. The paper eventually provides a historical explanation of the growing role of intermediaries in modern and contemporary art, and an insight on the French present time cultural policy concerning intermediaries in the visual arts.
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