Curtis L. Carter, copyright,all rights reserved

Since the intervention of the Jesuits into Chinese art in Sixteenth century, the proponents of Western art have on various occasions attempted to enter into and influence the development of Chinese art.  Such interventions have resulted mainly from globalization efforts on the part of the West. The focus here will be first, on the outcomes of cultural globalization in the evolving   developments in the art of the East and the West.  This essay will offer an analysis of Western art influences on Chinese Contemporary art, in reference to the notion of hegemony.  Globalization in art, as in other aspects of culture, consists of the movement or transfer of artistic, conceptual or practical enterprises developed in a particular culture to another culture that exists in some state of development.  The aims of such transfers may be simply to augment already existing practices, or more likely, to influence change in the receiving culture.  Hegemony refers to cultural dominance.  The essay will address the question whether the current relation of art in the West and in China is hegemonic? A comparison of the shift in cultural dominance from Paris to New York, with respect to art in the 1950s, to the current dynamic flow of art between between  art in New York and  Beijing will provide a comparative framework for addressing the question of Western influences in contemporary Chinese art and the emerging shift in the direction of influences from East to West.
The concept of hegemony will serve as a frame of reference for discussing the role of Western art in the development and especially the current state of Twentieth Century Chinese art.  First let us examine briefly the role of hegemony in understanding cultural practices.  The meaning of the modern concept of hegemony has roots in classical mythology and history. In Greek mythology Hegemone, whose name is associated with mastery or sovereignty among other of her characteristics, is one of the Athenian Kharites worshipped by the Athenians.  Hegemony was first applied in Greek history to claims of predominance by one individual state, for example Athens or Sparta, over others in the coalition of Greek States. This concept has been much used, perhaps, abused term in the discussion of cultural politics during the past half century.  It has often been applied to relationships of preeminence, leadership, dominance, or power particularly in assessing political, economic or cultural relationships among various parts of the world. 
More of late, hegemony has emerged as a concept in the writings of Antonio Gramsci, (1891-1937).  Gramsci understood hegemony as “a set of ideas by which the dominant groups in a society secure the consent of subordinate groups to their rule.”  His proposed strategy was to convince the subordinate groups to accept the moral, political, and cultural values of those in power.  To accomplish this it was necessary to capture the minds of the population as well as the intellectuals and the institutions such as the media, the church, and civil society.  Gramsci, a modern day Machiavelli writing in the 1930s, lays out a strategy for cultural dominance, particularly suitable for a centralized totalitarian social order.