While there has been an increasing amount of research into globalization since the 1990s, empirical sociological studies in this area remain all too scarce. By analysing specific cases in contemporary visual art, this article shows that the widespread art world discourse on globalization, mixing and the abolition of borders is to a large extent based on illusion. By objectifying the positions occupied by different countries in the field of art, the article brings to light a marked hierarchy that reveals that, beyond the development of international exchanges, the art world still has a clearly defined centre comprising a small number of western countries, among which the US and Germany are pre-eminent, and a vast periphery, comprising all the other states. The specific example empirically analysed here leads to a reconsideration of earlier studies of cultural globalization, most of which are essentially abstract. keywords: art ✦ art market ✦ globalization ✦ institutions ✦ internationalization Since the end of the 1960s, the international art trade has to a large extent been integrated into a world market, the very heart of which (Moulin, 2000) is constituted by international exchanges, and the main contemporary art institutions, 1 including museums and art centres, have been part of a vast international network.The various actors on this scene often state that they consider geographical boundaries and nationalities, including those of the artists, to be of no significance. Such a notion, which no doubt one would always find to be the majority view in the world of contemporary art (which by essence seems so obviously international, since, today, validation by space, by geographical distance, has replaced the validation by time,