Contemporary art can be seen and analysed as a system consisting of various figures and institutions that depend on each other or establish mutual relationships. This map drawn by the sociology of art is much more difficult to produce if we use an aesthetic criterion, not only because there is not just one answer to the question ‘what is contemporary?’ but also because the landscape is heteroclite and difficult to navigate. However, this has not been an obstacle to the wide expansion of the category known as ‘contemporary art’.