Fragmented Modernity - Art and the Politics of Form in Interwar France

Fragmented Modernity offers a critical reappraisal of interwar modernism, challenging the assumption that its pluralism was a lived historical reality. Through an analysis of French cultural institutions, independent salons, private academies, critical discourse and market dynamics, it argues that modernism was consolidated through selective recognition and exclusion. Fragmentation emerges not as a transitional phase but as a structural condition administered through institutional practices. Reframing the interwar years as a threshold in modernism’s formation, the book contributes to debates in modernist studies, art history, and the sociology of culture.

• Challenges the long-standing narrative of pluralist modernism
• Reconfigures the modernist field and its canon
• A timely, original study that offers archival depth and addresses ongoing debates about diversity, gatekeeping, and cultural power