Not until the 60¡¦s did art galleries start to exist in Taiwan. However, they were mostly sporadic, short-lived and weak in operation. It is only in the 80¡¦s when the art gallery industry in Taiwan started to take shape. Different from galleries back in the 60¡¦s and before the lift of Martial Law, galleries mushroomed in the late 80¡¦s and the 90¡¦s. In addition to the growing number of galleries, all the other factors, such as the return of a generation of young artists from Europe and the U.S. back to Taiwan, rising importance of museum establishment, fast expansion of media after the lift of Martial Law and newspaper restrictions as well as rapid changes in the economic and social environments, also helped bring about the unprecedented prosperity of the arts development in Kaohsiung. This prosperity was extremely valuable for Kaohsiung which had been wrongly ridiculed as a ¡§Cultural Desert¡¨ back then. This research focuses on the development and transition of the art galleries in the 90¡¦s with a view to keeping a record of the golden period of the art market in Kaohsiung. There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter 1 is the introduction to the motivation, goal, scope, limitations, research methods and process of this study. Chapter 2 discusses the interactions and relationships among artists, collectors, art media and museums. Chapter 3 attempts to provide a historical review of art galleries in Kaohsiung and discuss their operations by dividing the history of art galleries in Kaohsiung into five stages: the ¡§Foundation Period¡¨ before the 70¡¦s, the ¡§Taking-off Period¡¨ from the 80¡¦s to the lift of Martial Law, the ¡§Prime Period¡¨ after the lift of Marital Law and before the inauguration of the Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts (KMFA), the ¡§Waning Period¡¨ after the inauguration of the KMFA to the outbreak of SARS, and the ¡§Stagnation Period¡¨ after the SARS outbreak up to now. Chapter 4 focuses on the ¡§Prime Period¡¨ of Kaohsiung¡¦s art gallery industry in the 90¡¦s and its impacts on the art market in Kaohsiung. Chapter 5 is the conclusion. The research methods adopted in this study are literature review, in-depth interview and observation. Through data collection, comparison, review and cross-analysis, this study helps reconstruct the history of Kaohsiung¡¦s art galleries and provides an observation of the changes and impacts of the industry in the 90¡¦s as well as its current development so as to help predict the future of art galleries in Kaohsiung. Even though Taiwan is not a large island, the two largest cities in its north and south are actually quite different in their population compositions and city characteristics. The purpose of this study is to break the stereotypical belief in the visual arts industry that ¡§Taipei is the only representative city of Taiwan.¡¨ and to explore from a local viewpoint the history and operations of the art galleries in Kaohsiung and their impacts on the art market in southern Taiwan. Hopefully, this study can provide references for working and future art gallery managers in their operations as well as for related governmental departments in helping healthy development of local art galleries.