Dafen

Dafen is a village in China where it is estimated that three-quarters of the world’s oil paintings are produced. If you go there, you will see rows and rows of painters painting the same picture as they did the day before. This isn’t art; this is the industrial act of putting paint on a canvas. 

Who makes the art? No one knows. Are they technically proficient? Of course. But art is anything we do as humans that brings emotional labor to the table to make connections. And while we can fool ourselves into this this is art, painting the same thing over and over again with no defects, with no chance for failure–that is industrialism. No humanity, no chance for failure, no art.