Contemporary art, at the centre of market and fashion attention, defines the effective power of a country and participates in its formation. Unlike the litanies handed down, it has no special ability to mitigate conflicts and spur brotherhood among peoples, at a time when it has become an important factor in geopolitical valorisation and when knives are being sharpened in the spirit of renewed nationalism. This book, declaring the category of soft power obsolete, analyses in Part I the relationship of contemporary art with various spheres (religion, violence, tourism, globalization, market...) and in Part II, in monographic chapters, it examines its growing centrality in 25 countries. It addresses, in special inserts, some particularly hot topics: from ISIS’s cultural policy in its settlement areas to the controversy surrounding the reopening of the Russia Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale to the centrality of contemporary art in the “Epstein system”. The relationship between some neo-imperial conflicts and the spread of contemporary art is also analysed: “Blowing up someone’s leg and demanding that they love you for the crutches you give them or the contemporary art museum you set up for them is a recurring figure of this era.”