The state has always attached great importance to the cause of literature and art. As the successors and builders of the development of literature and art, art students in colleges and universities are crucial to the overall grasp of their ideological education, and it is an arduous task to cultivate their ideological education and values. Values education is the basic requirement of Marxist theorization, the central proposition of ideological education, a powerful breakthrough point, a major task of building national ideological security, an urgent task of building Socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the first priority in the basic task of "building a virtuous people". As the forward foundation and intermediate link of the formation of values, value orientation is very important to the formation of correct values. In the new era, university art students have formed a contradictory value orientation of coexistence between sublime and secular, fantasy and reality, rationality and rebellion, and balancing individual and society. At the same time, they have also caused a certain degree of negative consequences such as identity crisis, distance, aesthetic fatigue, and psychological exclusion towards mainstream values. Therefore, on the basis of Marxist philosophy, in the critical period of the formation of university art students' values, we should take some measures, such as promoting the integrity and innovation of ideological and political courses, expanding social practice and education channels, giving play to the advantages of new media, improving the governance mechanism of cyberspace, etc., to strengthen the recognition of university art students in the new era to mainstream values, and guide them to form healthy value orientations