Who is on Show? Globalization of Private Contemporary Art Museums in China

Abstract

Sociological research on global flows of visual art has primarily investigated artistic presence in the organizations located at the center of the art world. This article shifts the focus to a country outside the traditional center, as it investigates the nationalities of artists who have exhibited at the recently emerged private contemporary art museums in China. It demonstrates that Chinese artists dominate in their exhibitions, which points to a home bias. However, there is also evidence of a cultural hierarchy, with the dominance of a small number of European countries and the USA, and of the regional dominance of East Asian countries. The article demonstrates that a focus on a country outside the center enables us to see the prominence of regional cultural flows in the globalization of visual art. Moreover, it shows that private museums, which are relatively independent of state control, are an important venue to show non-Chinese contemporary artists in present-day China. The increase in non-Chinese artists in exhibitions over time, which is due to the establishment of new private museums, suggests the rising, albeit tentative, centrality of China globally in terms of the importance of its institutions. This article contributes to research on globalization in the sociology of art, and to the understanding of the dynamics of local and transnational cultural flows in contemporary China.