Israeli oil paintings sales agents abroad: how mediators change the value for cheap art

What is it about?

n 2007, the majority of oil paintings on the global market were exported from a single location – Dafen Village (大芬) in Shenzhen, China – for a minor part of this market’s worth. These paintings were sent from China all over the world, mostly to the United States and England. Between the two ends of the market – the Eastern manufacturers and the Western consumers – polarized perceptions of the same paintings often existed. The cause of this phenomenon is inherent to the global market’s mediation process. In selling paintings from Dafen, the various mediators tended to omit the paintings’ origin, and in some cases even invented a false origin or told half-truths to raise the price. This article is based on a case study, following the development of a worldwide network of thousands of Israeli sales agents dealing with cheap oil paintings from developing countries over the past 50 years. In recent years, these art dealers have been a prominent factor in the mediation of Dafen paintings. The main goals of this article are to launch and examine a discourse about the mediators of cheap art and their considerable influence on the art market; to reveal the roles and activities of Israeli art dealers; and to explain the way that Israeli mediators caused a change in the value and evaluation of the paintings they sold.

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