Art Intervention in Rural Areas: Comparative Analysis of Multi-Level Benefits of Two Typical Modes in Rural Development Transformation

Under the background of rural revitalization strategy, art intervention in rural areas, as a new way of rural construction in China, is attracting more and more attention since various art practices have appeared in Chinese villages during the last decade. Art intervention in rural areas has multi-dimensional benefits such as improving rural landscape, promoting villagers' income, enhancing community connections, and promoting cultural inheritance. On the basis of clarifying the connotation and typical modes of art intervention in rural areas in China, this paper constructs and analyzes the benefit hierarchy of art intervention in rural areas based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, and selects Xiaozhou and Fenghe villages in Guangzhou as typical cases to identify the benefit characteristics and problems of two modes of artist-led and capital-led art intervention through field investigation. Although previous studies have focused more on specific cases of art intervention in rural areas, which have revealed the work procedure and achievements in detail, the comparison of their differences and a systematic construction of the influence are still worth discussing. The research results show that: (1) Art intervention in rural areas is a typical mode of rural revitalization in which the government, capital, artists and cultural groups realize multi-level benefits such as rural landscape beautification, tourism economic benefits, community creation and governance, and local cultural inheritance through art practice in the context of rural revitalization. According to different driving subjects, the art intervention in rural areas can be divided into two types: artist-led and capital-led. (2) Art intervention in rural areas has four levels of benefits: material, economic, social and cultural, showing the characteristics of progression by level. (3) The artist-led type plays a significant role in realizing high-level benefits, while the low-level benefits are lacking; the capital-led type plays a significant role in realizing low-level benefits, while the high-level benefits are lacking. (4) Building a multi-party cooperation model with the collaboration of capital and artists, government support, and villagers' participation can combine the advantages of the benefits of the two modes and make the rural practice of art intervention more replicable. In summary, this study divides the practices of art intervention in rural China into two types: artist-led and capital-led, constructs the four-level benefits hierarchy based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, compares the four-level benefits between Xiaozhou village and Fenghe village, and summarizes the benefit differences between the artist-led mode and the capital-led mode. For its contributions, it innovatively applies Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory into the study of art intervention from a theoretical perspective and enriches the case study of art intervention in rural China and explores the characteristics from a practical perspective.