The conflict between the avant-garde and academicism dominated conceptions of modern art for a long time, shaping its various orientations toward the past or the future, its limitations or transgressions. The publication examines the interconnectedness of these positions precisely through their conflicts and traces its dynamics—from the founding of the first modern art academy in Florence in 1563, through the emergence of the avant-garde, to the fields of tension in contemporary art between institutionalization and artistic self-assertion, as well as between local and global references.