Maker, meet faker

Contemporary artist Sheng Qi heads to a faker's studio with Toby Skinner and Denise Fung to critique a forged copy of his art

There's a heavy silence as well-known Chinese artist Sheng Qi considers a copy of one of his paintings, which has been commissioned by Time Out and painted by Dai Jianze, a specialist art copier found at one of Panjiayuan Market's many art stalls. ‘It's not bad,' Sheng finally says of the copy of ‘Red Train', which sold for $14,000 USD last year.

‘Technically, it's fine, though he's used the wrong paints - I used acrylics and he's used oils, so the drips look wrong.' Indeed, the painting looks like an Ikea version of the original with its soul extracted - the application of paint is forced rather than flowing, and the dreamlike sense of the original is gone. But when you consider that 29-year-old Dai has never done a painting like this before, and that he recreated it for 500RMB from a badly printed A4 copy, Sheng Qi is probably right... it's not bad.

We are in Dai's house-cum-studio in a bustling hutong in Lujiaying (near Nansihuan) where he lives with his wife, Wang Yanqun, and their four-year-old son. Wang and Dai's cousin (who doesn't want to be named) both paint here along with Dai, and Wang's aunt and brother are also copy artists in her hometown in Fujian Province, often sending pieces to Beijing for sale. It's a kind of cottage family industry, and they have just opened a shop of their own in Shilihe, near Nansanhuan.

Dai is working on what will be the centrepiece of the new shop - a huge and impressively accurate copy of ‘The Banquet' by Jiang Guofang, a contemporary artist who paints images of the Forbidden City and, ironically, derives his style from the Flemish Renaissance maestro Jan van Eyck. Dai says the original painting is worth 2-3 million RMB; the copy (which will take 20 days to finish) will have a price tag of 10,000RMB, making it the shop's most expensive painting.

At Panjiayuan, the family compete with around four other stalls selling similar paintings, mostly by the same Chinese artists. At three stalls visited by Time Out, 100 x 80cm Yue Minjun and Mondrian-inspired Liu Ye copies sell for around 200RMB; vendors, who have all been to art school, sell between 150 and 200 paintings on weekends.

This output keeps Dai and his cohorts busy. The rooms in the house are crowded with paintings - mostly good copies of popular contemporary artists, which prompt approving grunts from Sheng Qi. ‘These are not only easy,' says Wang, ‘but they're the best sellers.' Though the three artists do paint originals, it's the big-name copies, which can be completed in less than a day, that they rely on.

‘We'd like to paint originals but we wouldn't be able to make enough money,' says Wang, who went to art school in Fujian. Original portraits she painted of her son took almost six months, a long time compared to the similar-sized Jiang Guofang copy. Dai and Wang came to Beijing four years ago because of the selling opportunities and to be exposed to China's modern art scene. ‘We often go to museums and exhibitions to learn about art and see what's the latest thing,' she says.

And just as the couple go to galleries, Dai says original artists come to Panjiayuan to see which copies of their paintings are selling well. ‘Artists come and talk about how they're selling,' he says. ‘They don't mind us copying their art - in fact, I think they're flattered and see it as a kind of advertising.' Only once have they had a negative reaction: ‘Liu Ye once came to our stall, turned his nose up and walked off.'

As for Sheng Qi, who is most famous for cutting off his little finger and burying it as a political statement in 1989, he actually sympathises with the need to copy art to survive. Despite the 43-year-old's impressive career - he was a pioneering performance artist in China's ‘New Art Movement' in 1985, and has created highly respected paintings, photographs and sculptures - it's only recently that he's been able to ‘afford not to live like a student'; when we meet him, he turns up in a gleaming silver Mercedes. ‘I've been an artist for over 20 years but I've also had to be a waiter, Chinese teacher, a tai chi teacher, an animator and a caricaturist. It takes a long time to find your voice as an artist, and I can see why a lot of people copy successful

artists for a bit of cash.'

He also says it's hard for Chinese artists to be original because of the way they're taught.

‘Everything in China is changing except the education system,' he says. ‘In art schools, tutors just want their pupils to be clones of themselves, and you're a black sheep if you deviate from that.' After leaving China in 1989, Sheng eventually ended up at St Martin's College of Art in London. ‘In London, they realise that art is not just form and technique. It's far more important to have thought - the most important things for an artist are what he has to say and where he stands politically. In China, creativity is still seen as one step from madness. They'd rather you just repeated the same thing over and over.'

Having watched the Dai family's busy stall at Panjiayuan, their venture certainly doesn't seem like madness. But somehow it isn't quite art, either.

Dai Jianze and Wang Yanqun can be found at Stall 23, Row 2, Panjiayuan Market (tel 137 1756 1651); andSheng Qi will be selling his latest work, ‘Most Wanted', at the Affordable Art Fair Beijing (see Feature, page 18).