Graphic Art At The Macao Cultural And Creative Industries Development Possibilities

Printmaking had had30years of development in Macao as a frontier whereChinese and Western culture intersects, but has undergone a lot of changes after thereunification. Besides appropriation of government scholarships to support localartists to exchange and study abroad, the colonial government also invited famousBritish printmakers to Macao to conduct classes in conjunction with the introductionof the technology and equipment to its first School of Visual Arts in Macau, which isrecognized internationally. This furthered the development of Macao’s printmakingindustry, and had been subsequently supported by the business community. Manyworks had been acquired by Portugal, local government officials, and collectors.After the reunification, printmaking development has slowed down because of variousuncertainties. With the lack of art market and resources, it is difficult for the localprint artists to survive in the "official" marketplace. This phenomenon is alsoimplicated in the whole backward trend of Macao’s art circle. During the fourteenyears of reunification, the politics, economic, social, and cultural environment ofMacao have all undergone great changes because of the development of gaming andgambling industry, and the art industry has also changed under this new culturalenvironment. In recent years, the cultural industry has become a very important partof Macao. The Department of Cultural Affairs Bureau started to solicit publicopinions and study the development of the culture industry between2007and2009.This fully reflects that the Macao government valued the cultural industries and wasfully prepared. The promotion of cultural and creative industries has reintroduced abright road to the art of prints in Macao. Admittedly, the art education of heritage andcultural values become an very important issue in the possibility of cultural andcreative industries development. This thesis starts with the history of the developmentof Macao’s art of prints and art education, studies about how to fully utilize Macao’slocal advantages in creating values and industries of the art of print, culture andcreativities; and about the advantages and disadvantages of the development ofculture and art in the current environment, subjectively and objectively; and how toopen new possibilities of the art of prints among the cultural and creative industries.The purpose of this thesis is to study about how to develop Macao’s printmaking sothat it is not just a mere creation of art, but also an art of living, and part of the cultureand creative industry with a mass consumer market.