An artist happily works away in his rent-free apartment in the recently opened Oriental Painters’ Village in Shanghai

With its Soho-style Songzhuang art village and the 798 art hub, Beijing now, artistically speaking, overshadows Shanghai.

Although M50 - 50 Moganshan Road on the banks of Suzhou Creek - is Shanghai's 798, it is tiny compared with the Beijing counterpart with 798 being at least five times bigger.

But Shanghai never lacks ambition. Enter the newly opened Oriental Painters' Village that vows to compete with Songzhuang ?? at least in size.

Promoted as "the biggest painters' village in Asia" with an area of 30,000 square meters, the artists' heaven in suburban Nanhui District is more than an hour's drive from the city's downtown area.

Liu Qun, general manager of the Shanghai Real Estate & Media Consulting Co Ltd which is behind the concept, believes "we can build a new Songzhuang in the southern part of the country."

Besides an artists' village, the company is also proposing a cluster of townhouses and commercial stores as part of the development where there is plenty of space.

But while space is important, it is not the key factor. Beijing's Songzhuang is big too.

Li Xianting, "the godfather of Chinese contemporary art" and a well-known art critic, is the general planner behind Songzhuang.

He famously launched the then unknown Fang Lijun, Yue Minjun, Zhang Xiaogang and Wang Guangyi onto the international art stage. Li's status, his strong academic background and his wide connections in both the East and West art communities are undoubtedly the cornerstone of Songzhuang.

Today the art hub is a microcosm of art society where big names mingle with unknown and struggling artists.

This is maybe the problem for Liu: The Shanghai Oriental Painters' Village seems to lack a vital "backbone."

So far there are hardly any heavyweight curators, artists or art critics there while the village committee responsible for judging who can move in currently comprises of three not-so-famous artists and the developer.

The selection criteria is quite blurred. According to Liu, about 300 artists from all over the country, including some from either Songzhuang or M50, have already moved in. He has provided them with studios rent free for two years ranging in size from 40 to 350 square meters.

"This is a great lure to us,'' says Kun Bulei, head of the village. "The rent in M50 has already risen 5 to 6 yuan per square meter per day, a price that few artists can afford."

Kun's sentiments are echoed by Zi Mu, an artist from Yunnan Province, who uses his studio not only for art creation but also to sell tea from Yunnan.

"I like the place,'' he says. "There's nowhere in or near a big city like Shanghai where you can find a free studio."

But there is no free lunch. Each artist is required to give two of their artworks to the developer during their stay - who knows who might become a star of tomorrow?

A series of events including exhibitions and seminars are being organized to help build the image of the art village.

Several years ago, another painters' village opened in an old high-rise building in Pudong. Very quickly it folded due to a sharp rise in rent and conflicts between the landlord and artist residents.

Like the old one, everything about the Nanhui village looks promising and fine right now. But what about the future?

The Oriental Painters' Village is in the neighborhood of the future Shanghai Disneyland.

"I could only say that our future rent will be lower than the average rental fee of the region,'' Liu says, diplomatically.

But is art omnipotent? It transformed an abandoned fabric factory into M50 it turned a remote unused factory into 798 and it is now going to level up the image of an ignored corner of suburban Shanghai.

"It is the developer's goodwill to invite artists to the village,'' says Zhu Qi, a famous Beijing art critic. "Because of their joining, the media coverage of the place is inevitable. But I am still concerned how many of these artists will be able to make a name for themselves in the next two years.

"If they don't, how many will continue to receive the free lunch?''

Nobody knows.