| Abstract: | This study of art galleries in the Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) uses a political economy approach to examine the contours of the art world and the art market. A Chinese art market based on the Western and Japanese models was created in the early twentieth century, but was abolished in 1949 when the PRC, under Chairman Mao, adopted a socialist framing model on a national scale. Breaking out of this totalizing frame was difficult despite the adoption of market socialism in 1979. The decade between 1979 and 1989 witnessed rapid surges of creativity, which were brought to a full stop by the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. In 1992, however, the national policy of rapid growth gave the cultural industry a sharp nudge. Since the mid‐1990s, two trends in the art world have emerged: a collaborative framework for developing contemporary PRC art (including commercial art) for both the internal and external markets; domestic art as a commentary on changing social and cultural values. |
