arts and crafts

The restrictions applied to exporting art in China hindered the economic boom which hit the fields of production and exchange. Nevertheless, the structure of the arts and crafts market has recently become clearer, in this nation where free market and all fields of artistic production are rapidly growing. Through fairs, galleries, auctions, exhibitions, and private sales, the Chinese arts and crafts market offers an unlimited range of possibilities for artists, collectors, traders, and art critics today. According to some statistics, in 2000 sales of works of art reached almost 2 billion yuan per year - $240 million - these were, and still are, mainly located in the biggest cities: Peking, Shanghai, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Hangzhou, Tianjin, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Changsha, Suzhou, Shenzhen and Zhuhai. Hong Kong, Taipei and Macao are other important centers of the Chinese art market. The presence of a domestic art market can be due to the fast economic growth of the country allowing a growing number of people to purchase works of art. Since the ’90s, the Chinese arts and crafts market especially that of contemporary art is still only a small-dimension business. On the whole artistic production and its foreign trade are balanced and in some ways can even be seen as complementary: Chinese people have bought modern western arts and crafts, and at the same time some Chinese artists have sold their works to foreigners.