The Most Wanted Works of Art, 2010
Masterpieces – a steal!
The Southern Chinese city of Dafen calls itself a “culture industry model base”. Right now tens of thousands of copy artists are copying European masterpieces. They remain anonymous, work collectively and produce something that is at the same time art and non-art. Just like geheimagentur, only that geheimagentur does not produce paintings but situations, situations that seem fictional but turn out to be real. Thus, as part of THE MOST WANTED WORKS OF ART, branches of the culture industry model base Dafen were set up in Hamburg and Vienna: by invitation from geheimagentur, some of the best copy painters from Dafen came to Hamburg and Vienna, and geheimagentur and Dafen Inc. set out to socialise the means of artistic production together: an exhibition was produced according to wishes of visitors, who after the concluding auction were actually paid for their wishes.