Fine Art of China in the Late XXth Century: New Names, Concepts, Cultural Institutions

The article analyzes the historical and cultural prerequisites for the development of visual art of the 1990s of the XX century in the People’s Republic of China as different from the traditional national art. The first part of the article gives a preliminary overview of the development of the artistic process in the 1990s for the first time. The artists of the new generation were influenced by the culture of socialist realism. The second part analyzes the reasons for the emergence of the phenomenon of new generation artists in the 1990s, which were formed under the influence of the market system. Market mechanisms stimulated the arrival of new artists and the for-mation of the commercial sector of the art market. The article describes the motives, socio-cultural and mental grounds for the success of new artists in the situation of the creative industries market. It is proved that the driv-ing force of changes in Chinese art culture was the formation of the system of art process facilitation, institu-tionalization and commercialization of exhibition and exposition spaces, (genesis of symbiotic institute of pro-fessional curatorship, art criticism and art dealership), as well as the experience of borrowing and cultural diffu-sion of mainland China with its island partners – Hong Kong, Macau. Around the 1990s, many small or private galleries were gradually established in China. The emergence of curators increased the number of artists of a new generation, outlook and new concepts.