This is pretty much the plot of Exit Through the Gift Shop, where an artist (or maybe "artist") invests tens of thousands of dollars into a factory production p

This is pretty much the plot of Exit Through the Gift Shop, where an artist (or maybe "artist") invests tens of thousands of dollars into a factory production process, hiring a bunch of artists and crafts people to realize his ideas, many of which are rip-offs and derivatives of existing street art, graffiti, and pop culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit_Through_the_Gift_Shop Is he an artist, or an entrepreneur taking advantage of the art scene? It's hard to say, the result is quite fantastic in my opinion - it's like postmodern art that unintentionally mocks itself by being based on "stolen" ideas. So either it's "real art" by expanding our conception of what "art" and "artist" mean; or it's "pretend art", only an imitation of art. I mean, modern art pretty much deconstructed itself, I'm not sure if there's even any difference between authentic ("natural" and "human") art, and inauthentic ("artificial" and "machine generated") art.