CHINA'S ART FACTORIES

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http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,433134,00.html
 
CHINA'S ART FACTORIES

Van Gogh From the Sweatshop
By Martin Paetsch in Shenzhen

Southern China is the world's leading center for mass-produced works of
art. One village of artists exports about five million paintings every
year -- most of them copies of famous masterpieces. The fastest workers
can paint up to 30 paintings a day.

A giant hand raises an impressive paintbrush into the sky at the
entrance to the art village. The bronze sculpture outside the gates of
Dafen in southern China leaves no visitor in doubt as to what the
people do here. The "village" is in fact a modern suburb of Shenzhen, a
city with 10 million inhabitants northeast of Hong Kong, and it has
achieved unexpected fame and relative prosperity. But the city's
ostentatiously advertized success has little to do with creativity:
It's based on the reproduction of famous artworks on an industrial
scale.

Photo Gallery: Mass Producing Van Goghs