The worldwide cultural fashion favouring Chinese artwork raises a new subject for consideration: arts administration. A textbook entitled, "Respect for Art: Visual Arts Administration and Management in China and the United States" launched in Beijing, Sunday. The book is a collaborative effort, by two professors in the field, one in Beijing, the other in New York City.

A textbook entitled, "Respect for Art: Visual Arts Administration and Management in China and the United States" launched in Beijing. (Photo: CCTV.com)

Arts administration has experienced explosive growth in the United States since 1970. It dates to the time when the sale of a private collection owned by an American taxi fleet owner and his wife, brought profits of up to nine times the estimated value of certain paintings. Today, China is undergoing a similar transformation. There's been rapid expansion of the market in Chinese arts - both at home and America. Some 2,000 art museums have opened during the past decade.

Into this milieu comes the book "Respect for Art", co-authored by Joan Jeffri, Director of the graduate program in Arts Administration at Teachers College, Columbia University, and Yu Ding, her counterpart at China's Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Yu Ding, co-author of "Respect For Art", said, "China's movie box office the past year is about 3.2 billion US dollars. And the trade volume of auction houses alone, apart from galleries or expos is over 2.5 billion US dollars. It leads to a conclusion that artwork has exceeded the earnings of the movie industry. So skill in arts management is much in demand."