Tuesday, Jun. 22, 2010
China's Fine-Art Factory
Once a small village of 300 people in southern China, Dafen is now the center of the world's reproduction-art market, with factories of artists churning out tens of thousands of fake Picassos, Rembrandts, Van Goghs and Da Vincis each year. According to the state-run China Daily newspaper, the village (now a part of booming Shenzhen) accounts for 60% of the world's oil-painting market. Although the vast majority are reproductions, a burgeoning community of recent art graduates is also producing original works in Dafen. To encourage these artists, the local government built a $13 million museum in the village in 2007 and began offering some subsidized housing and residency rights.