WHEN Michael Mandiberg visited Dafen Oil Painting Village one Friday morning, he was awe-struck by the quantity of paintings in the village. Disoriented and confused, he wondered if Dafen was really the village described in a New York Times report, which drew him from New York to Dafen earlier this month.

"The New York Times said Dafen was a village, but what I saw is a modern city, with lots of shops, buildings, and factories," Mandiberg told the Shenzhen Daily after spending a week there.

An assistant professor with the Department of Media Culture of the City University of New York, Mandiberg became interested in Dafen after reading a New York Times report entitled "Own Original Chinese Copies of Real Western Art" published July 15, 2005. He came to Dafen to shoot a 10-minute documentary for student research and screening in galleries.

Mandiberg spent a whole week talking to painters, and visiting shops, museums and factories. It was a brand-new experience for him, as he had never seen such mass-production of art.

He was especially interested in the two factories he visited. In one of the factories, the process of producing a painting is broken down into five stages, with skillful painters in charge of the first and final stages. In the other factory, the painting is produced in a 20-part process.

"Dafen is a good place for painters to make a living. In New York, most artists have to do other jobs, like teaching or working in galleries, to support themselves," said Mandiberg.

However, Mandiberg is not optimistic about the future of original works from the village. "Some museums in Dafen sell originals at prices as high as US$3,000, but foreigners will not buy them. When people buy a painting, they want identification with artists. People don't spend over US$500 on an object which they are not familiar with," he said.

Painters copying western arts

Editor: Wing