现代艺术是目前唯一在国际上占统治地位的艺术现象。本文从地理学角度出发研究现代艺术的发展演变。首先回顾了现代艺术的发展过程,重点分析了现代艺术的地域性特征,指出国际现代艺术体系有"中心-边缘"性的分布格局,从流派数量和艺术主题的变化方面总结了其发展演变特点,并且总结了历史上三次重要的艺术扩散过程。其次分析了我国现代艺术发展的时空分布和地理格局,指出我国现代艺术的中心位于东部沿海大城市,具有分布不均、在国际体系中地位不高的特征。最后指出我国城市积极参与国际现代艺术体系、提升文化艺术地位的重要性和途径。

Modern art-the dominant art form in the present world-reflects people's psychological distinctiveness in a changing social environment. The art's evolution as well as its method and range of proliferation are influenced by politics, economics, culture, and social tradition and exhibit geographical characteristics. This article explores the development of modern art from a geographic perspective starting with an overview of the evolutionary process and its division into three periods of advancement-a European-centered Period before World War II, an American-centered period after World War II, and a diversified development period that started in the late 1970s. Then the article analyzes the geographic nature of modern art from the perspective of locality, spatial distribution, evolution, and proliferation. The article uncovers that modern art is related to its surrounding social environment and is influenced by the local culture, politics, and economics. From the aspect of quantity, global influence, and maturity of art policy, the US is the primary center of modern art while Western Europe occupies the secondary center and the former Eastern Europe, Latin America, and China hold the fringe positions. During each period of modern art's development, there were significant changes in the central theme and the number of genres. The article also summarizes the three important instances of modern art dissemination in the past. The first instance is the spread of abstract art as it migrated from Russia to Western Europe before eventually reaching America and Asia. The second instance occurred during the Second World War when the conflict caused a group of influential modern artists to emigrate from Europe to the United States, triggering a transfer of the art center. The third instance is the proliferation of American art-the post-war stream of artistic ideas from the United States to the entire world. Before concluding, this article analyzes the time and geographic distribution of modern art development in our country, showing that Chinese modern art is centered within the large, eastern coastal cities with an uneven distribution and a low eminence in the international art community. The article also highlights the importance-and possible methods-of encouraging artistic participation and of improving the standing of Chinese culture and art in the world.