A major figure in conceptual abstraction, David Diao questions the uses and institutions of the art world. Archival documents, photographs, lists, sales figures, biographies, artists' careers - including his own - revolutionize our approach to painting. Reproduced on a very elaborate monochrome background, the documents have an informative value as well as an aesthetic value. Diao gives the painting an effective conceptual dimension: focused on information and content. And if it gives a central role to information, it also affirms the irreducible presence of painting, which makes the role of documents more complex to define, as the essays in this work show. This book is taken from the conferences of the international conference “Painting and document: David Diao” which was held in 2014 in Strasbourg. With texts by Hélène Chouteau-Matikian, Michael Corris, Felix Gmelin, Catherine Grout, James Harithas, Jean-Marc Huitorel, Marjolaine Lévy, Joseph Masheck, Stéphane Mroczkowski & Alexandra Pignol, Marshall N. Price, Ramon Tio-Bellido, Hiram To , Marjorie Welish.