Outsourcing Art?

Via Sociological Images

In line with our exploration around the effects of globalization, did you know that there are Chinese painters trained to produce artwork that is then sold to tourists around the world? They copy paintings or photographs of images (at a much lower payrate than artists from the various locales would undoubtedly request), producing them in these workspaces in China. These paintings are then shipped to various tourist location and sold as if they are local products, painted by local artists. These artists produce images of the American West, Venice, etc. They are obviously quite technically skilled, even if they are forced to copy certain types of images, which are in demand as touristy schlock.

This is one example that ties together many of the themes we've been looking at, probably more towards the negative end of things. The interconnection of cultures and economies that globalization brings means that we outsource many jobs to locations where labor is the cheapest. Usually we think of this as applying to factory work, or other manual labor that requires little skill or creativity. But here we see it even applies to work we think of as highly skilled and creative.

It also exposes the blurring of time and space that we talked about with regard to the spread of technology, as well the postmodern idea that we can no longer distinguish between the virtual and the real. When we buy art to represent a place that we have visited, we imagine that it connects us more deeply to that place. But are we really connected to that place, when the image of Venice has been painted by an artist in China, then shipped to the gift shop in Italy?