This book challenges the museum enterprise in China as a state monopoly and considers it as a new cultural agency that has emerged in the early twenty-first century. Following a constructive and multi-perspectival approach, it discusses the roles of political and cultural-economic agents, museum intermediaries, and museum publics in the interlinked processes of regulation, cultural production and consumption, and the issues of identity and representation faced by the art museums in the Greater Pearl River Delta Region. It broadly traces the art museum from its origin as a tool of nationalism and adoption as a vehicle of modernization in both nationalist and early communist periods, until its role in the present, as it reflects the contested and alternative representations, diverse publics, and fissured identities of the post-economic reform period of China.

Dr Selina Ho Chui-fun specializes in museum and cultural studies. She is a doctoral graduate from the Asia Institute of The University of Melbourne. Her recent articles were published in *Museum Management and Curatorship*, *The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum* and *Museum Activism* (2019).

AcknowledgementsNote on RomanizationList of figures, tables and illustrations1. Introduction1.1 Rethinking museums in China1.2 Museums as cultural circuits1.3 Selection of art museums in the Greater Pearl River Delta region1.4 Methods1.5 Book structure2. Revisiting the historical trajectories of modern art museums in China2.1 The path towards the birth of modern public art museums in the Republic of China (1912-1949)2.2 The development of art museums in the People's Republic of China (1949-)* Politicization of art museums under Mao (1949-1979)** Cultural relaxation and the resumption of privatization in the post-Mao period (1979-1989)** The nascent development of private art museums in the 1990s** Museums in the twenty-first century2.3 The changing museum contexts in Hong Kong (1962-current)2.4 Concluding remarks3. He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen3.1 Between the state and the market: a contingent national museum framework3.2 From nationalism to the production of knowledge: the art of He Xiangning3.3 Cross-straits cultural diplomacy and public dialogue on contemporary art3.4 Interpreting contemporary sculpture: possibilities and limitations3.5 Educated youth, provincial visitors, and a diversified national public3.6 Concluding remarks4. Times Museum in Guangzhou4.1 Institutional boundaries: the private market, the state, and society4.2 Developmental perspective of cultural globalization* Critique of art commodification* Social-political critique of everyday life* Critical relationship between art and society* Institutional self-critique and reformulation of the museum4.3 Artistic regionalization: southern imaginary vs northern hegemony4.4 Educated youth and the consumption of 'alternative culture'4.5 Concluding remarks5. Hong Kong Museum of Art in Hong Kong5.1 Museum bureaucracy and its institutional network5.2 The historical painting collection: from the colonial legacy to aesthetic differences5.3 International blockbusters and global cultural capital5.4 National representation and the grandeur of dynastic art5.5 Different notions of the local: from east-meets-west to a local-national-global nexus5.6 Public and counter-public: museum consumption in a city-state5.7 Concluding remarks6. Conclusion6.1 Museum modes of circuits6.2 Implications of the findings* Institutional regulation: political and cultural-economic agents* Cultural production: museum intermediaries* Cultural consumption: museum publics6.3 Contributions of the researchBibliograghiesIndex