Art, This Silent Passenger: Heritage Transmission as an Act of Cultural Resistance

I. The Material Legacy: Strategies for Eternity

• Living Sound Donation: The Art of Control

Tax benefit: Reduction of €100,000 every 15 years per child (Article 790 G of the CGI), with total exemption for works classified as “national treasures”.

• Succession: The Trap of Joint Ownership

Statistics: 68% of collections are dispersed due to lack of agreement between heirs (ArtMarket Study 2023).

II.

• Tell the Story, Not Just Own It

Method: Family archives increase sentimental value by 40% (Musée des Arts Décoratifs, 2023).

• Sensory Initiation: Educating the Gaze

Science: 89% of current collectors were exposed to art before the age of 12 (ADIAF, 2023).

III.

• NFTs: A Dematerialized Heritage Under Tension

Advanced: Smart contracts guaranteeing property rights on blockchain.

• Ephemeral Art: Transmitting the Intention, Not the Object

Philosophy: Sol LeWitt's instructions ("Wall Drawings") are handed down like musical scores.

• Virtual Museum: The Collection Without Borders

Innovation: Google Arts & Culture used by 92% of French schools to visit private collections (MEN, 2024).

IV.

Since 1911, each generation has added a work to the family collection, accompanied by a cross-tasting notebook:

Epilogue: Transmission as a Sculpture of Time

“Transmitting a work is offering much more than an object: it is entrusting a fragment of one’s own vision of the world. In this fragile chain from hand to hand – from the creator to the heir, then from the heir to the next guardian – lies our most beautiful victory against oblivion.”

As auctions increasingly disperse collections, this intergenerational practice becomes a political act: affirming that beauty deserves to be preserved, not as a relic, but as a permanent dialogue between the centuries.

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