Zhou Tiehai is an evil artistic money making genius. He comes up with concepts in photoshop, prints them out, pays a student in a $1000 bucks to paint the image on a full size canvas then sells it for $100,000 plus.

Some people in the art world are naturally offended that he should not paint the paintings himself but I think it actually all ties in with his reflection on modern times in China - plus he comes up with these cool concepts himself.

Zhou Tiehai is a graduate of Shanghai University’s School of Fine Arts. In the 90’s he became despondent with the state of modern Chinese art which he felt was mediocre and cliched as a lot of the local Chinese artists pandered to communist ideals.

His famous works involve a lot of Joe the Camel.

So whilest the other Chinese artists were painting Mao Zedong and the red guards with coke bottles (already done in Russia with Stalin) Zhou created fake Western art and news magazine covers where he proclaimed himself as the new king of Chinese art.

He made some short films and pretty soon he was on his way to Venice Biennale.

“I didn’t want Western audiences to have a fixed image or icon of what is Chinese contemporary art,” says Zhou Tiehai

Like Andy Warhol he decided not to waste his time with actually painting his works and instead hired poor Chinese students. This freed up time for the more important activities of brainstorming ideas and networking with gallery owners, collectors and even journalists.

He just whips up images on the computer. Prints them out. Then has one of these Chinese students paint it.

This guy is a straight out hustla like Ludacris and completely different to other artists like Janine Daddo who just do it for the love.

It just goes to show that cynism can be a million dollar habit.

And even though good ol Zhou says “being famous is easy” and “making art is easy” it turns out the guy is actually pretty passionate and driven.

As if to formula with others selling the emperors new clothes critics have described him as “elusive genius whose sagacity and humour permeate” or my personal favorite apparently he’s a “wave-maker and trendsetter who understands that historical development always entails the possibility of interaction and commingling between contradictory sides”.

Zhou Tiehai doesn’t care to much as long as people continue to buy his art in New York and Tokyo, Germany, Portugal, The Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Spain for up to a $100,000 a piece:

“People buy art like they’re going to a designer clothing boutique. They know a brand and without thinking too much they want to buy it. I’m a manufacturer (of contemporary art) and the difference is I’m upfront about it.”

It’s fairly apt that Zhou Tiehai should describe himself as a manufacturer of art given China’s new role as the worlds factory.