Here, there, everywhere. We have to call it something, don't we? Who's got an idea? Let's call it Toponymy.

9.05.2007

Factories of Art


dafen, originally uploaded by lila75.

The gates to the village of Dafen are marked by this giant sculpture. Dafen has gained international fame and noterity as a hub for art reproductions. Cribbing works like the Mona Lisa requires a great deal of technical skill.

In vast studios Dafen's artists create their reproductions in an assembly line fashion. Each artist adds only a few brush strokes, ones that he or she has perfected. The end result is a stunningly high quality painting that is difficult to differentiate from the original.

Dafen is located outside Shenzhen, a large Chinese city near Hong Kong. Each year more artists flock to the village. Spiegel estimates that over 5 million oil paintings come out of Dafen each year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

These are the same artists whose paintings are sold out of someone's trunk on 28th st. They also like to paint on black velvet. George Castanza would love it!