Salon Salon unfolds a narrative about Beijing’s art scene in a decade from the late period of the Cultural Revolution to the beginning of the Reform and Opening-up (1972–1982)––a period that is considered as a brand-new start for contemporary Chinese art. It focuses on the continuous influence of the ideological structure of socialist realism in China on the practice and discourse of contemporary Chinese art; how artists and their pieces engaged in “internal exile” wherever possible amidst a harsh political environment, feeling out and defining the tense relationship between art and politics or adjusting their individual standpoints. This book also attempts to discover hidden crevices in the existing narratives of contemporary Chinese art history, to serve as starting points for rethinking.