Almighty painter

Chapter 215
Hanks stopped for a moment under the plaque of Gu's Painting and Calligraphy Shop.

The courtyard wall has begun to be mottled and weathered. Looking into the interior through the glass store door and windows, it seems that the decoration is still the same at first glance.

But after looking at it for a while, in fact, it is nothing more than the level of ordinary street cafes.

Small doors, small households, small galleries, nothing more.

"Well, that should be it."

Translated as he pushed open the store door, Hanks curled his lips.

He wanted to see the depth of this family that could raise Gu Weijing's children, so he walked into the calligraphy and painting shop, not in a hurry to find the owner to explain his purpose, but wandered around the shop like a normal buyer for a while.

The calligraphy and painting shop is not very big.

The two hundred square meters are divided into exhibition areas of different styles by two or three white exhibition walls.

Hanks stopped and walked, passing most of the works like a glimpse, occasionally looking at a painting for a moment.

It took about a quarter of an hour,

He took a look at most of the collections in the store.

"Gu Tongxiang, it should be Gu Weijing's grandfather and guardian."

Hanks compared the information in his mind, stopped at a meticulous painting of flowers and birds, took away the price tag number plate next to the picture frame, and walked to the counter at the door together with the two number plates he just picked at random. Handed over.

Neither surprise nor disappointment.

Hanks doesn't quite believe that such a level of painting can train a young talent like Gu Weijing.

The factors that make a master of art often account for half of the reasons for talent and environment.

He didn't see an environment that matched his imagination.

So let's say,
Gu Weijing himself can draw to the current level, nine out of ten are simply because of the amazing talent of this little brother.

"Actually, this old gentleman is not bad."

In the eyes of Hanks, Gu Tongxiang's painting skills are far from those of the recluse masters who live in the countryside and have no talent. Sun Tzu Gu Weijing's fusion brush and ink are comparable to each other.

Take it out alone,

It is also about the average level of a professional painter, better than the low-level agent painters of some small community galleries in Europe, and he probably worked hard when he was young.

Considering that it came from a place like Myanmar, which is in a state of chaos, it is even more difficult.

If I had the opportunity to go to France, Germany or Dongxia to work hard in the early years, I might be able to write my own story.

Regrettably,

The tumultuous art environment put an end to that possibility.

The family is poor and everything is sad, so is the country,

Genius disappears in the smoke, this is the tragedy of poor places.If it weren't for the appreciation of Professor Kazushige Sakai, maybe that brother Gu Weijing would repeat this cycle.

Thinking about it this way,
Hanks felt that he was really a kind person who saved suffering.

"A total of 250 million kyats, can I use cash? If you pay in US dollars or euros, you can get a [-]% discount. We also accept RMB and Japanese yen."

The middle-aged woman behind the cash register hadn't seen such a generous customer for a long time, and happily entered the number plate into the computer quickly.

"Visa credit card is fine. By the way, I want to ask, there is Gu Weijing here. Are Mr. Gu's works for sale?"

Hanks pretended to ask casually.

"who?"

The middle-aged cabinet sister raised her head, she thought she had heard wrong.

"Gu Weijing."

Hanks repeated word by word, "I saw an empty display box over there, and the nameplate on it was marked [Colored Pencil Drawing (11×15 inches)], was it bought by someone?"

It is said that the children of the poor are in charge of their homes early.

This Gu Weijing showed such a brilliant pen and ink style at a young age, and his family opened a small gallery by themselves.

Hanks doesn't want to know that the donkey boy he misses, hangs up the mold at a young age and sells hundreds of cheap paintings.

if that's the case,

He might also consider whether he can repurchase and destroy it, otherwise it will be a big trouble after he becomes famous in the future.

He also hopes to make such a good foundation into a fine painter who can follow the classical high-end route in the future!

High-quality painters are like high-cold beauties. The output does not need to be high, but it must be fine.

Some winners of the Turner Prize and the International Watercolor Prize, like Deborah Walker, paint three or four paintings a year, and each painting can be sold at a very high price, and collectors are chasing after them.

In the industry, selling some cheap paintings when you are a minor will not be taken too seriously.

But if the collectors know that the cold beauty they are looking for, they sold a lot of works like a printing press back then.

There will also be a sense of disillusionment that the beautiful woman of Qingben is wandering in the world.

but……

"500 US dollars is a lot of money for a colored pencil drawing that counts over ten inches of drawing paper. Can it be sold?"

he wondered.

"Pfft."

The middle-aged aunt behind the cash register laughed outright, her tone quite disdainful.

"The old man's heart is biased, so he changed his way to give pocket money to his precious grandson. Five hundred dollars, heh, five hundred dollars, he deserves it too, give it, just give this kid the whole family, his grandson He is a great artist, and his granddaughter is mud on the side of the road..."

The aunt who was sitting in the calligraphy and painting shop looking after the store, thought of the five hundred dollars that the old man had remitted to his grandson when she checked the accounts, and her teeth itch with displeasure.

These days, I often read in my husband's ear, those surnamed Gu in their family are sorry for their mother and daughter.

Like a machine gun, my aunt expressed a series of dissatisfaction with her grandfather and grandson, and even the business translator on one side couldn't keep up with the speaking speed of a menopausal woman who was fully fired.

My aunt was relieved of her nagging, and then she remembered that there was a customer next to her who had just spent a thousand or a few hundred dollars on a painting.

"That Gu Weijing is my nephew. He is still a high school student and can't draw anything good. If you want to make an appointment, you can find our old man. He is a member of the Yangon Painting and Calligraphy Association...""

"Well, the family atmosphere is not very good."

Hanks nodded in his mind.

With a family environment full of cracks, this background condition is quite artistic.

It is one of the common openings of great painters.

Hanks lowered his bargaining chips in his heart, and felt that the $[-] annual creative allowance he expected was a bit too high.

unfortunately,

Gu Weijing's guardian is not the philistine middle-aged woman in front of her who is full of resentment.

He is also approaching the end of the process, and legally has almost complete capacity for civil conduct.

Signing a contract at this age must seek my opinion.

Otherwise, Hanks is sure to spend thousands of dollars in favors to buy the contract from the other party.Then, as the savior, he took Gu Weijing away from his original family and went to a wider sky, taking both benefits and favors.

It's so cool, okay?

"Ma'am, I hope to meet old Mr. Gu Tongxiang. This is my business card. I have something very important to discuss with him. It's about Gu Weijing."

Hanks hands over a business card.

My aunt frowned and took the postcard. Her English level was average, but she still recognized the words on the card——

"Manac'h Gallery?"

In the study on the second floor,
Mr. Gu Tongxiang, who was bored reading an old Hong Kong-style martial arts novel with yellowed corners, turned his head, his eyes fell on the business card in his hand through the reading glasses.

He had never seen such a business card with such a sense of design. The two sides in the lower left corner of the business card were straight lines, and the two sides in the upper right corner were curved lines with different curvatures.

The four sides form an asymmetric figure that looks like a rectangle, an arc, or a fan.

There is no rustic style of gold and silver, but it can be remembered at a glance. The design is very clever.

"Manac'h Gallery, Manac'h Gallery, Manac'h Gallery? This business card is printed flashy, and there is no address on it."

by the desk,
My aunt glanced at the gaudy business card held by Mr. Gu Tongxiang, and said in a wary tone: "Dad, this guy is not here to visit the new gallery opened in Yangon, no wonder he is here today I bought so many paintings of our family, so it turned out that the weasel gave the chicken New Year greetings, so I didn’t feel good about it!”

"Manac'h Gallery, I seem to hear this name a little bit familiar."

Gu Tongxiang stroked his beard.

He vaguely felt that he seemed to have heard this name somewhere.

But for a while, he couldn't remember it.

"Did the other party say something?"

"It's for the scriptures." The aunt raised her eyebrows, "This child is really restless. He just got into trouble with Brother Hao a while ago, and this kind of person came to him again during this period, so you can get used to him!"

Gu Tongxiang waved his hand, interrupting his daughter-in-law's chatter.

The old man's hand trembled suddenly.

"You said... you came here to find Gu Weijing, Manac'h Gallery, this seems to be Ma Shi Gallery!" Gu Tongxiang finally remembered the name.

The old man's Adam's apple squirmed, and he swallowed hard.

The reason why Gu Tongxiang, who has been running a calligraphy and painting shop for half his life, didn't connect Manac'h Gallery with Mashi Gallery in the first place.

Mainly because the name is too far away from their family's small business.

The small merchants who open grain stores in the port will not care about or even hear about [Glencore], a super commodity foreign trade empire ranked second only to Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Shell Oil in the world's top [-].

Every industry is a towering tree.

Gu’s book gallery is a small business rooted in muddy roots, the Komatsu gallery of the Komatsu family is the solid trunk of a big tree, and the giant gallery is floating in the clouds, calling the wind and rain in the entire field and nourishing the earth.

Although Ma Shi Gallery has experienced a clear decline in recent years, and has the momentum to fall from the clouds to the canopy again, it is not something that Gu's Book Gallery can look up to.

With the arrogance of such a top gallery.

People don't even look down on Myanmar's painting and calligraphy industry. If they really want to set up an art and creative park in Yangon, they won't buy a small gallery like them.

So……

"The business card says the agent Hanks Marsh. Looking for my grandson to be the manager?" The old man had already thought of a possibility, his heart was beating fast, but he didn't dare to let himself hold too much hope and then be disappointed later .

"You call it right away, no, you go and ask someone to come up. I'm going to change my clothes now."

Old man Gu glanced at the loosely washed t-shirt on his body, gave his daughter-in-law a few words, and hurriedly rushed into the bedroom.

……

"Mr. Gu Tongxiang, I have long admired your name, hello."

Hanks held Mr. Gu's hand. This sentence was neither English nor Burmese. It was completely spoken in Chinese, and the accent was really correct, without the strange accents common to foreigners.

He learned from Professor Sakai that the family is all Chinese.

These days, money is a master.

Asia is the craziest art market, and Dongxia's transaction volume is among the best every year.Regardless of the prince in the Middle East all day long, the oil tycoon will spend hundreds of millions of dollars in the trading market to buy paintings every now and then.

Many of these are due to the high-profile foreign policy of the Gulf countries to show off their wealth and show their country's image to the outside world. It is really more than the hot money flowing in the entire market. The famous wealthy countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar can't compare. A Dongxia market.

Hanks has more or less found someone to teach him two sentences of Chinese.

Not only can he use Mandarin, he can also say auspicious words such as "Gong Xi Fa Cai" and "Cai Yuan Guang Jin" in Cantonese.

Brokers are also in the service industry, so you can make the bosses happy so that they can pay for the artists they represent, right?
"I don't know...you are."

Gu Tongxiang felt flattered here.

He hesitated for a moment, but still asked his inner guess. "Does Ma Shi Gallery want to buy the works of my grandson? It's an honor."

"That's not bad, but we don't buy works."

Hanks shook his head and looked straight into Gu Tongxiang's eyes: "I flew to Yangon this time, hoping to sign Mr. Gu Weijing."

Geek!

The voice fell into my ears.

Mr. Gu's chair made a creaking sound.

The old man was able to maintain his superficial composure brought by years of scrambling through the streets and streets, but in an instant, an unconcealable wetness welled up in the corners of his eyes.

Gu Tongxiang still doesn't understand at this moment how Tangtang Mashi Gallery found such a small family like theirs.

He doesn't care anymore,

At this time, the old man's mood was ups and downs like a tide, and a warm feeling rushed from his heart to his eyes, and then radiated out from every pore.

Probably only Dong Xia's parents who hoped that their children and grandchildren would become dragons and phoenixes could understand Gu Tongxiang's feeling of ecstasy and bewilderment at the moment when they received a call from the Qingbei Admissions Office.

Mashi Gallery!

Gu Tongxiang kept echoing the name in his heart.

It's Fucking Mars Gallery!

Mashi Gallery, once as famous as Gagosian!
Everyone who has ever held a paintbrush, who has never had a dream of reaching the peak of art, signing contracts with top galleries, and opening their own solo exhibitions in art museums around the world?

He, Gu Tongxiang, also imagined such a scene in his dreams when he was young.

It's just that dreams are just dreams after all. When he was a teenager, Gu Tongxiang knew that such a dream did not belong to him, nor did he belong to this environment.

My talent is not bad, but no matter how good the painting is, those high-ranking art critics will not focus on the moment before.

The upper limit is almost sealed.

Moving a small bench to Tianqiao to paint is his career future and his destiny.

Later, when he got married and started a business, and had a little money in his hand, Mr. Gu Tongxiang didn't even have such a dream anymore.

In fact, in the age of oil painting, he had the opportunity to travel to developed Asian countries and cities with foreign investors.

Mr. Gu Tongxiang himself still refused.

He is the pillar of the family, he went to chase his dream, what about the orphans and widows in his own family?

The older you get, the less you care about yourself, and the more you care about your children and grandchildren.

Gu Tongxiang is looking forward to the day and night that his grandson can join those large intercontinental galleries and become a real master.

Over the past few months,
Although his grandson's performance became more and more outstanding, he gradually felt that he might really be able to see such a scene in his lifetime.

But when the manager of Ma Shi Gallery sat in front of Mr. Gu alive, he still couldn't help the urge to cry.

The old man lowered his head, pretending to drink tea from a teacup, and wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes with his fingertips.

"Hmph, that's right. I just like the way the old man is tearful and grateful." Hanks was very satisfied with Gu Tongxiang's reaction in his heart.

It's still easy to talk to insiders who know the status of Ma Shi Gallery. This signing should not take much trouble.

"Gu Weijing...he's not at home now, I'll call him and tell him to come back."

"It's okay, we can talk first." Hanks was not particularly anxious.

Gu Weijing is not yet an adult, so he has settled his guardian, and when the child comes back, it is just a matter of signing.

"Uh, it's convenient to ask, at my grandson's age, are you officially representing him, or..." Gu Tongxiang's mood had calmed down, and he asked a little uncertainly.

"We Ma Shi Gallery came here with full sincerity, unlike some colleagues who engage in raising Gu. Naturally, it is a formal contract."

Some large galleries will establish their own creative parks for young artists, and also hold their own art competitions.

Through these methods, we have widely contacted, cultivated, and observed many talented candidates.

Only a few very good ones can get formal contracts.

Many candidates can be observed for three, four or even five years from the initial contact to the gallery's decision whether to officially represent the other party.

Before this,

Their names will not be listed in the list of represented artists on the official website or the Wikipedia homepage to prevent the gallery from being smashed.

Strictly speaking,

Katsuko Sakai is not currently an official representative artist of Tokyo Gallery.

Hanks did not hesitate too much about this question, and simply said: "If everything goes well with the signing, Gu Weijing will be the 302nd official agent artist of Ma Shi Gallery since its establishment, and will be the same as countless brilliant names in art history. , and become a glorious Mashi.”

The gallery has represented over [-] painters since World War II.

Among them, nearly [-] people have been signed in the past ten years, and Hanks doesn't care about signing one more person for the gallery, and it can also show his importance.

"Well, if my nephew is signed away, how much can we get for a month?" My aunt couldn't hold back at this time, she stretched her neck and asked.

My aunt is an accountant, so I don’t know much about Mashi Gallery, but listening to it, I also know that this gallery seems to be quite powerful.

"Ma Shi will give its artists a certain allowance. The custom is to give a check for the next year's allowance every Christmas, but if you want, it is also possible to make a monthly payment."

Hanks thought for a while and held out a finger.

"When I came on this trip, I specially applied for a creative grant, which can give [-] US dollars a year."

Aunt was stunned.

"Is he still a student? To paint for you, you will pay ten thousand dollars... every year! You are not a liar, are you?"

The middle-aged woman grinned in disbelief.

The U.S. dollar has a very strong purchasing power in Yangon. Two dollars a day for ordinary people can cover the living expenses of food, clothing, housing and transportation.

The consumption level in Myanmar is equivalent to that in China in the late 80s, and there are many working-class people who earn less than five dollars a day.

The annual income of [-] US dollars is still pure foreign exchange, which is already the level of the middle-level managers of local multinational foreign companies.

More than seven to ten times the GDP per capita.

During the epidemic, when business is not doing well, the family may not be able to save [-] US dollars a year.

Now someone is rushing up to sign her nephew who is still in school with money equivalent to the annual profit of the entire painting and calligraphy shop.

My aunt thought the world was crazy.

Hanks smiles.

He liked the petty look of this middle-aged aunt very much.

The landlord's family has no food left.

Ma Shi Gallery can have tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year, but it does not mean that tens of thousands of dollars are not important.

The flower is the province.

It's not just about money. Gallerists don't really like their artists to be too rich.Otherwise they will become lazy.

In Hanks' eyes,
The most ideal creative environment for an artist is that the painter’s parents live in the ICU, their children go to private public schools, and there are three divorced ex-wives outside, who are like a ghost asking for your living expenses every month.

So they had no choice but to lock themselves in a small black room, drink cold water, eat dry food, and paint wildly with paintbrushes in their mouths.

want money,
Trade talent for it!

Without economic pressure lashing behind like a small leather whip, people in the literary and art circles who are not short of money have no motivation to grind.

When Balzac, Flaubert, and Picasso were rich, they went out to whore and gamble wildly, hooked up with rich women leisurely, and when they were in debt, they would obediently work hard to write calligraphy and painting.

The reason why Balzac was so prolific and created a large number of works in his life, the stories behind them were all written in the apartment when he owed money and was stuck in the apartment by publishers and even loan-lending gangsters.

In the fine arts industry, galleries pay painters salaries and allowances to prevent them from being starved to death on the streets, which is a fashionable concept in the last century or so.

The rich French master, Paul Durand-Ruel, is known as the patriarch of the modern gallery. It was because he felt that the suppressed Impressionist painters had a miserable life, and he wished to go hungry for nine meals for three days, so he showed kindness. Regularly send money to painters to maintain their creative status.

before that,

Painters who don't work hard and can't sell their works, you deserve to be starved to death.

During the Renaissance period, so many painters spent several months without sleep, and spent tens of hundreds of square meters painting church domes. The reason behind it was not because of their piousness, but because of a word, poor.

(End of this chapter)