Oil Painting Reproduction Business? Uber for Art?
Not a single Chinese art factory can be even close to Uber for art. After all they are factories. Factories do what factories do: making standards, streamlining process, bringing down costs. Art is different: non-standard, no particular process and its cost depends on individuals.
Two things are must for platforms like Uber: individuals and rules. These factories have individuals who work with them but these are not individuals of a high-level of self-awareness and self-promotion like Uber drivers. So no individuals. As for rules, I don’t know exactly how these reproductions are made but several things I’m pretty sure of are:
- these art workers are trained workers
- they do reproductions that look close to the original but if you look closer and start to check the details…
- printing technology is used before they apply oil paint on the canvas, which makes sense considering accuracy and cost
All in all, as a consumer, if he or she is looking for something decorative for rooms, these reproductions are fine. As a fine art lover, probably with some art background, more often than not you are going to be disappointed.
The above painting, in these art factories, they call it “Eloping” instead of “Storm”. They don’t care for what the art they are to reproduce is about. They are expected to reproduce something out that looks like the original at the first glance.
The global industry of handmade art reproductions is a strange one. Chinese art factories make art at low prices. Western online or offline galleries sell them at prices several times higher.
Probably Uber drivers versus taxi drivers are like art factories versus individual independent artists. The core lies in that is art isn’t an industry. It’s one artist one business. Or, organized art production doesn’t add to the quality of art you are to receive. Why Uber became a phenomenon is because of the same rationale.
The difference between the output of individual independent artists and art workers is a big one. Almost all reproduction galleries sell Van Gogh’s reproductions. Check the difference (details, efforts):
Two biggest online galleries who resell oil reproductions that are made by Chinese art factories:
The future of art will follow this mode:
- factories do mass reproductions like prints that can be handled by machines and standards
- original artists do most of the creative work
- artists between art workers and original artists, i.e. skilled ones who lack creativity, will form a small team with brand and work on projects from consumers, like what www.handmadepiece.com do.
- art factories are shrinking and will continue to shrink