2014, Pages 83–106
4 – Dolce & Banana, A Shanzhai Creator’s Manual: production and consumption of fake in contemporary Chinese art practices
- Available online 2 July 2014
Abstract:
Shanzhai culture in China has permeated everyday life. Fakes and knock-offs abound in the marketplace and the global piracy trade is thriving. Chinese knock-off goods are offered for a fraction of the price of the ‘original’, but shanzhai produced for the local Chinese market are not just direct copies but rather products created and adapted to local needs, desires, and demands. This shanzhai creativity can be viewed as on the frontier of innovation and as a disruptive grassroots business model. Concerns about intellectual property have led to legal restrictions on creativity and copyright legislation, yet intellectual property rights (IPR) violations are allowing more Chinese consumers access to, and enjoyment of, brand products without the expense of high-end brands ( Pang, 2012). This chapter looks at how shanzhai can be used as an appropriative practice in contemporary art, and as a method of resistance, subversion, and critique. Study copies and forgeries in the history of Chinese painting and calligraphy and the Canton Trade of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Perdue, n.d.) can be connected to modern-day shanzhai culture, and taking a positive and constructive view to fakes and forgeries leads to a better understanding of the changes in tastes of collectors and forger-artists ( Whifield, 2006). The Dafen Oil Painting Village (itself an invented village) in Shenzhen produces professional copies of existing paintings, made to order. Contemporary artists such as Michael Wolf, Christian Jankowski, Liu Ding, Leung Meeping, Xu Zhen, and Ai Weiwei have all at one point incorporated shanzhai discourse in their practice, and challenge the notions of authorship, production, and originality.
Key words
- shanzhai;
- Dafen Village;
- forgeries;
- authorship;
- contemporary art;
- counterfeit culture;
- fake trade;
- consumerism;
- copyright;
- intellectual property;
- brands;
- reproductions;
- chinoiserie
