Internationalization of Italian contemporary art’s galleries in China. An analysis based on the case of Galleria Continua, a pioneer Italian art gallery in China.

Abstract

Since the Chinese consumer has lately shown an interest towards the art market, the art galleries should try to answer this demand. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to hypothesize good practices for successfully internationalize Italian contemporary art’s galleries in China by responding to the main difficulties that a gallery can face inside the Chinese market. These difficulties have been highlighted trough an analysis between marketing to China’s literature and international gallery’s system literature, and have been identified as: how can an Italian contemporary art gallery successfully go international in China despite the low level of education of the Chinese consumers about the Italian contemporary art and how can find and deal with the right network of Chinese players? After a description of the present situation of the Italian and the Chinese contemporary art’s markets, the questions about the difficulties of internationalize in China have been answered using a qualitative analysis consisting in an investigation of the experience of Galleria Continua, one of the first Italian contemporary art gallery to open in China. By combining marketing to China’s practices and the experience of Galleria Continua the research reaches its conclusions.