
China's Art Factories: Van Gogh from the Sweatshop (2006) - wallflower
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,433134,00.html
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hownottowrite
Things have changed quite bit since this article was written. Here's a more
recent look at Dafen: [https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-
village-60-wor...](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-
village-60-worlds-paintings-future-jeopardy)

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bluetwo
China's art factories produce both art and a series of articles about the
production of mass-made art.

Every few weeks there is a story about this here.

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Egidius
Reminds me of China's van Goghs:
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6013920/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6013920/)
(2016)

Awesome documentary

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gradys
Totally agree. It recently won the LA Chinese Film Festival. I'd highly
recommend it to anyone who hasn't seen it.

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creep
For some reason, reading anything about China's mass production always makes
me a little depressed, but this one hit me pretty hard. I'm an artist myself,
in my free time, and the greatest joy I find is to be able to create any image
I want, in my own style. It's a reflection of my subconscious, my individual
perspective and taste. Reproducing another artist's work by hand I consider to
be a useful exercise, maybe, in some contexts, but I could never imagine doing
it for a living. I think that would kill my soul a little, not only to paint
the same thing for days, but to see the original work in such a light.

The first time I encountered Van Gogh was in elementary school, and it was his
Sunflowers series. It's almost like a memory-push-pin of my childhood;
Sunflowers marks a page. To paint Sunflowers over and over, I can't imagine.

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moftz
For some people, building electronics is a hobby they enjoy. For others, it's
a job they do all day long. Same with sewing and gardening.

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creep
It's a little different. Both of your examples can be and are an artform, but
it is not usually reproduction. Perhaps reproduction of another's process, but
that's to develop the skills moving forward. From there, modifications are
made. Taste is even applied. Best methods, a "style" if you will, for the
process are refined. We have machines to reproduce electronics on a mass
scale. Anyone in a workshop is not soldering as a creative pursuit. Anyone
reproducing the same famous artwork weeks on end is not going to be creatively
fulfilled. There's not much room for growth there, despite refining the
ability to reproduce the works with more quality. But at $50 bucks a piece for
such labor, what's the point?

I'm sure this kind of work is something that a portion of people would enjoy,
but it's a niche to find creative fulfillment from such things, and often the
reproduction artist will _still_ modify it based on their skill level and
taste.

Doing it for the money is not my issue. Doing the same thing over and over
again with the same skillset, without growing in creative expression, is the
issue I have.

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amalag
We visited Bali and they have some beautiful paintings there. There are so
many artists there. With a little training they could produce some outstanding
original art but instead they are painting a lot of similar tourist friendly
crap. It probably needs some capitalist with vision to make a real artistic
hub.

Such beautiful places are where tourists want to go and they can naturally
pick up some artwork while they are there. Instead they get the same touristy
crap.

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dis-sys
> In 2012, the median income of professional artists with art degrees in New
> York City was $25,000. In 2015, the chance that an artist living in the U.S.
> would receive a solo exhibition at MoMA was 0.0006%.

[https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-driving-
artist...](https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-driving-artists-
professional)

same problem, slightly different extent

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j_s
Interesting to see which discussions hit the big-time, and their follow-ups.

[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=instapainting&sort=byDate&type...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=instapainting&sort=byDate&type=comment)

