Why is so Important Buying Art Direct from the Artist?
(picture) Replicas of contemporary Chinese paintings are offered for sale in Dafen, known as an art reproduction village, in Shenzhen, China.
Factory for Fakes exist in Dafen a village in a suburb of Shenzhen, southern China.
- Millions of Knockoffs - workers here produce Rembrandts, Monets and Warhols -- by the millions.
- Of the nearly 5 million paintings produced at Dafen each year, almost 75 percent are knockoffs.
- Dafen back in 1989 - China born, Hong Kong businessman Huang Jiang arrived with 26 artists seeking a cheap base from which to complete orders placed by Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Kmart for more than 10,000 oil paintings.
- Last year, Dafen sold 430 million yuan of art, nearly double 2005 levels, according to the village management office.
- Chen, who paints original pictures, said he doesn't feel guilty copying other artists' works.
- government introduced intellectual property rules that bar galleries from selling copies of works by living artists and those dead for less than 50 years.
- A walk around Dafen's galleries, full of copies of works by China's bestselling contemporary artists, shows that the rules aren't strictly enforced. [from bloomberg]
regiaart.com is the Regia Marinho website.
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