A true visual immersion in the exceptional collection of the Centre national des arts plastiques in France, this publication features more than 400 works, which combine painting, video, installation, design, photography... Constituted in 1791, the collections of the Cnap were set up during the French Revolution, when the notion of common heritage emerged. They now include more than 107,000 works by French and international artists and constitute a major support for contemporary creation.

To accompany this visual corpus, a text by Aude Bodet, director of the Collection division, tells the genesis and the specificity of this collection presented in various places, as well as the various acquisition campaigns, with as a backdrop the significant historical milestones, from the Revolution to the present day. The book's art director and editor, Éric Reinhardt, also invited six personalities from the world of the arts to choose ten works. The filmmaker Bertrand Bonello, the choreographer Phia Ménard, the playwright Romeo Castellucci, the director Pascal Rambert, the author Léonora Miano, the architects Lucie Niney & Thibault Marca, as well as Éric Reinhardt himself, become curators over portfolios, conceived as carte blanche, in which they evoke their relationship to images and the influences that certain works may have had on their practice. A visual sum approached through the eyes of current creators, this selection of works taken from the Cnap collections testifies to the evolutions of today's art.