Almighty painter

Chapter 706: Tolerate Him
“Let Gu Weijing and Ms. Sakai talk about their discovery of Impressionism, right here, during the exhibition.”

"Go and ask, go and beg, go and talk to the organizing committee."

Mr. Cao said in a deep voice.

When Liu Ziming heard what his teacher said, he was stunned for a moment.

He said those words, but he didn't expect such a result.

Art exhibitions can be simple.

A wandering painter sets up a stand on the side of the road, sets up a stall, hangs a few works at random, and puts a sign saying "30 dollars per piece" next to it, and it counts as a very simple small personal art exhibition.

It can be complicated if you want.

The Venice Biennale is divided into six different parts, including the Art Biennale, Architecture Biennale, Film Festival, Music Festival, Dance Festival and Theatre Festival.

Each sub-exhibition has a competition unit and a non-competition unit.

The competition unit will be further divided into the main competition unit and several other categories of exhibition units.

Any sub-unit taken out separately can become a large-scale independent art exhibition.

During the exhibition, the entire city, and even the whole of Italy, almost revolves around the exhibition.

It is a symbol of the national spirit.

During the unmentionable years at the Venice Biennale, Adolf would fly to the Biennale to "audience" with Mussolini, the godfather of the Axis powers. The art exhibition was like a collective carnival party for the demons of hell. It was not just because a certain mustache guy was a failed art student and he had some concerns about not becoming a great painter.

Although this is the biggest black history of the Biennale, it also reflects from the side how grand it is.

The Singapore Biennale is not as large as the Venice Biennale, which is about to become a national celebration.

It is by no means comparable to any shabby show by a makeshift troupe.

The entire exhibition lasted from the beginning of July to the end of the month, and the schedule during this period was completely packed with a series of dense arrangements.

Needless to say, the exhibition proper will continue over the next week or two.

There are also an additional series of peripheral activities arranged around the exhibition.

The more important ones include the opening ceremony, closing ceremony, award ceremony, expert symposium, and VIP exhibition day for distinguished guests...

So many artists have gathered together, their paintings are displayed on the stands, they can't just sit idle, right?

What a waste.

You have to pull it out and take a stroll!
The invitation letter that Gu Weijing received for the exhibition stated at the end that guests were advised to bring formal evening gowns in preparation for attending the artist dinner.

The Artist Dinner is an opportunity provided by the organizing committee for all participating contestants and critics like Ms. Elena to get to know each other privately and build connections.

It is a social venue with an official nature.

There will also be high-end private gatherings organized by several big names, similar to Liu Ziming's party on a boat to watch sports games.

When ordinary visitors come to the exhibition, in addition to viewing the works on display, what they look forward to most is signing up to attend an artist symposium.

It is also commonly known as the "Master Lecture".

The organizing committee of a large-scale biennial often invites some internationally renowned masters, scholars, critics and the most popular artists in the exhibition to hold a series of public lectures and interviews with them during the exhibition.

The organizers provide a conversation space for these people to talk about their understanding of art, personal creative experiences, or anything that interests the audience.

For hardcore art lovers and the core fan groups of great painters.

The on-site symposium may be more worth looking forward to than the exhibition itself.

Participating in this kind of symposium is one of the best ways for any painter who wants to win an award to promote himself during the exhibition.

Usually visitors will not stay in front of a booth for more than 10 seconds.

Even at the central booths with the most prime locations, the average time each visitor spends looking at them will not exceed 15 seconds.

In other words.

Even if an artist has the best booth, he or she only has time to conquer the audience with a few deep breaths.

If you fail to leave a deep impression on others during this period of time.

You will be ruthlessly left behind.

Don't say that good works need to be savored carefully and so on.

An art exhibition is not a film festival.

Once the doors of each film festival screening hall are closed, audiences are unable to sneak in, especially for the more popular shows, out of courtesy or simply out of respect for their own efforts in getting tickets and drawing lots.

Even if the audience is so bored that they fall asleep in their seats, or watch for half an hour without even understanding who the protagonist is, they are unlikely to leave midway.

There are too many works in the exhibition.

If the work is not attractive, the audience will move on to the next one.

15 seconds may seem like a short time, and it is indeed a short time, compared to the works in the corners of the booths that may not even get 5 seconds of attention.

They are already lucky.

It would be rude to complain again.

Symposium and lecture are completely different concepts.

First of all.

In the conference hall, talking to a room full of art lovers, guests, colleagues and even famous painters will bring great satisfaction and sense of accomplishment.

It is, after all, a very revealing thing.

Second.

On such occasions, guests will have a full hour, two hours, or even three hours to present their artistic concepts and creative experiences.

The whole period belonged to him alone.

No one can compete with him.

He can fully explain the spiritual feelings and emotional experiences that he wants to convey to the audience, make a thorough artistic analysis, and guide the audience to understand his work in detail.

If he cannot impress the audience after such a long time, then it is not a matter of time at all.

What cannot be accomplished in two hours may not be accomplished in two years.

Either the other person is not his type, or he is not the other person's type.

In either case, his work is a failure to the other party.

If it were a little more utilitarian.

Some people may not care whether their works can be understood by ordinary people.

However, since they are here to participate in the art exhibition, they always care about whether the judges can understand their works.

These are seminars and lectures officially organized by the organizing committee.

The judges will basically come to watch and show their support.

How can this be an art lecture?

From the perspective of the participating painters, this is clearly a stage for them to express themselves freely, allowing them to express themselves - "Why am I so awesome? Why should this award belong to me! Vote quickly."

Yes, the organizing committee of the art festival will provide occasions such as artist cocktail parties for painters to socialize with each other and allow them to showcase themselves in front of the judges and wealthy people.

but.

At the official reception, there are slutty girls everywhere competing with you.

For someone like Anna who is both a big judge and a wealthy person, if an ordinary small painter wants to run over to say hello and get the other person to nod slightly at him, his agent or the gallery he signs with may have to be powerful enough to separate the crowd in front.

Not to mention the little painter that no one cares about.

Even great painters like Tangning and Kazunari Sakai were only qualified to talk to Anna for a few minutes at the banquet.

Sorry, the chat experience card brought by the cumulative sales value of works worth US$100 million is only valid for this long.

Remaining time.

If you want to continue talking to others, they have to be willing to talk to you.

But in the lecture, it doesn't matter whether you speak well or not.

The judges in the audience were basically too embarrassed to run away.

Even if they don't understand, at least you can make yourself familiar to others and gain respect.

The organizing committee and jury of this Singapore Biennale are mostly composed of art practitioners, including painters, critics, curators, and guests from commercial galleries.

They can all be considered professionals.

To be honest, with some very abstract works, even the most professional judges may not understand what the work is expressing after watching it for 15 seconds.

But two hours.

No matter how complicated the matter is or how profound the concept is, it can be roughly explained to the professional judges.

You won't be able to conquer them even if you spend a whole lecture.

This is also no longer a question of time.

It may be that people simply don't like your work, simply don't like you as a person, or have already had a painting that they particularly like.

Even... to put it bluntly, they had already had a PY transaction in private, but it was ignored.

Again.

What cannot be accomplished in two hours may not be accomplished in two years.

In either case, if you spend an entire lecture and still fail to successfully convince the judges to vote for you, it means that their votes are destined not to be yours.

There is really nothing to regret.

And if the painter performs well enough on stage and shows enough "artistic charm", he will have the ability to extract gold from nothing like an alchemist.

Then.

Even if he really placed a ball of air on his booth, he might still be able to win the shining golden crown.

Therefore.

During the Singapore Biennale, every artist who was officially invited by the organizing committee to give lectures and dialogues at the Esplanade - Art Centre can be regarded as a special painter among the special painters.

Academic seminars and keynote speeches are held alternately every afternoon during the exhibition.

There are also seven games.

It seems that there are indeed a lot of games, but even if the number of games doubles or triples, there are still more wolves than meat.

Hundreds of artists participated in the Biennale.

And the theme lectures.

The schedule includes a show by curator Tonks himself, a show by a great Singaporean painter, a show by a painting master who has won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Venice Biennale and was invited by the organizing committee, and a show by the great judges of the organizing committee.

More than half have already been distributed.

In fact, there are only three sessions actually allocated to the participating painters.

They can almost be regarded as the three most popular and promising famous painters in this exhibition.

Each of them has a big gallery behind them, and each of them has a good chance of winning the gold medal of this Biennale. To use the terminology of sports competitions, they are the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seeded players of this exhibition.

Mr. Cao now asks Liu Ziming to arrange a symposium about the thesis for Gu Weijing, but it is not as simple as just adding one person.

The judges’ schedules and timetables are all set.

Suddenly there is one more person who wants to give a lecture...which means that one of the seven people has to be squeezed out.

Ok.

This is so insulting.

A more likely scenario is that the big shot who made this request is really too important and the organizing committee cannot refuse it.

They should find a way to squeeze in some time and add one more lecture.

It is also possible to cancel a seminar. The question is - why?
These seven people are either curators of art exhibitions, masters with numerous honors, or well-known painters in famous galleries.

Cao Xuan himself proposed to hold a dialogue session during the exhibition.

Pie in the sky.

There's nothing much to say. The gallery was so happy that they gave a warm welcome with open arms and legs.

Liu Ziming is going to give a lecture. If it was during the preparation stage of the art exhibition, there would be nothing to say and the organizing committee would be very happy. But at this point in time, it’s a bit troublesome... Well, okay, okay, it’s not a big problem.

Look at the Buddha's face without looking at the monk's face.

Just think of it as giving face to the old shipping tycoon. No one would push such a tycoon away.

Replaced it with Gu Weijing?

Those who can give official lectures at the Esplanade are either curators of exhibitions or winners of Venice's lifetime award. Those who are relatively "ordinary", such as the CDX Gallery that has made great efforts this time, the various exhibition costs and publicity resources invested by the gallery for this Biennale are definitely in the millions of dollars.

This secured a lecture spot for their own painter.

If you want to win the gold medal at the Venice Biennale.

A million dollars is really nothing.

Even if it's 10 million dollars, it may not necessarily lead to the desired results.

But the Singapore Biennale? Even though it is one of the most popular editions this year, there are really a lot of them.

More than a decade ago, the entire Lion City Biennale cost only three to four million US dollars.

Even if I won the gold medal.

The painting itself probably cost no more than $100,000.

CDX spent so much money on this Biennale.

Why did Gu Weijing do that? Who does he think he is, that he had to force a new exposure opportunity on the eve of the event?

Why would the organizing committee agree to this?

Ok.

Liu Ziming knew that the organizing committee would eventually agree.

Gu Weijing certainly does not have the qualifications, so the person who will pay the price for him to be in the spotlight is naturally the one who can afford it.

Who else could it be other than Liu Ziming?

Huh? Why did I suddenly have to pay such a large sum of money?

The key is not really about money.

Many awards, no matter how high-brow they are, are inevitably criticized online for being biased and for dirty personal connections. Even awards like the Oscars are criticized every year for being piled up with huge amounts of money from lobbying teams behind the scenes.

In fact.

This matter needs to be looked at from two sides.

Human accidents are always inevitable.

But when it comes to using money to buy awards, at least in 2023, the major well-known awards are no longer willing to do so blatantly.

Sometimes spending money can have the opposite effect.

There are big artists and the galleries behind them who spent tens of millions of pounds but returned empty-handed from the Venice Biennale. Some people believe that it was because his momentum was too great, forcing the Venice organizing committee to leave him aside in order to highlight their own "artisticity" and "independence".

If this kind of thing could be solved by spending some money, Mr. Liu would certainly feel that he had been taken advantage of, but that was all.

But if Tonks dares to charge money to do this.

That’s career suicide.

Spread the word.

Don’t even mention whether artists will rebel.

Believe it or not, the Singapore government, who want to use this art exhibition as a cultural business card of the city, would tear it up out of hatred?

Things that don’t cost money are often the most expensive things.

It’s so expensive that even Liu Ziming would feel heartbroken.

"Teacher, Gu Weijing... Given his situation, wouldn't it be too risky for him to give a lecture in the Esplanade in front of so many industry professionals?"

Liu Ziming couldn't help but want to struggle again.

“What if, what if there is really something wrong with that article? The scene will be too big, the response will be very bad, and it will be difficult to end it.” He said softly.

This time.

He seemed to be really worried about Gu Weijing in his heart.

He hesitated for a moment and said, "At this kind of discussion, if there are problems with the paper, it would be difficult to actively control the outcome of the interview, right? People might not ask the questions we want to ask."

"Why should we guide? What is fake cannot be real, and what is real cannot be fake."

Cao Xuan shook his head.

"If there is nothing wrong with this article, then all the glory and honor he gets is what he deserves. If there is something wrong with this article, then no matter how big the fall or how bad the fall is, it is also what Gu Weijing deserves."

"His weight, his weight, and how he wrote the paper have all been thoroughly exposed to the world."

The old man said in a hoarse voice.

"That's right. That's good. Ziming, you're right about this. I should have listened to you. This is supposed to be a discussion meeting, not a lecture where one person talks nonstop. The purpose is to find the problem."

Liu Ziming looked at his teacher carefully again to make sure that he was not speaking in a sarcastic manner.

Whether this kind of paper is credible or not is inherently ambiguous.

Liu Ziming mentioned this matter in front of Miss Elena because the "Oil Painting" magazine behind Anna might play a very decisive role in the debate about the paper, no less than the British Museum's characterization of "Savior".

Although Mr. Cao himself is not an art scholar, he has no research on Impressionism.

But if the old man is determined to support Gu Weijing, he can also add a very heavy weight to the scale.

This is where the elderly have their place.

Liu Ziming originally thought.

Since the teacher has spoken up and put in so much effort, he must be supporting Gu Weijing to the end.

Now it seems that the facts are not as he thought.

"You mean... there's no need to set a tone in advance or anything?" he confirmed.

"Need not."

Cao Xuan simply shook his head.

Liu Ziming felt relieved.

This result is not unacceptable. If Cao Xuan insisted that Gu Weijing be present at the Biennale in front of everyone, he would be questioned and even embarrassed.

Okay then.

This is Gu Weijing's fate.

If Mr. Cao could play a key role in determining the truth of a paper, then... why couldn't Liu Ziming do the same?

Faced with something full of uncertainty, let outsiders believe it.

It's hard.

It is much easier to get outsiders to question it.

If the teacher's attitude is to cover up the truth, no matter whether the paper is true or false, it will become "true" after this discussion.

Then.

Liu Ziming really has to put in a lot of effort.

But if Mr. Cao didn’t arrange it this way.

Then, it was too easy for Liu Ziming to embarrass Gu Weijing.

What if there is something wrong with this paper?
There's no such thing as an accident.

Whether it is true or false is not important at all, and whether Gu Weijing wrote it seriously is also not important at all.

He thought it was fake.

That's enough.

There are some things that Liu Ziming feels he should consider more carefully for his teacher.

How could Cao Xuan's last disciple and the junior fellow of the Painting Sect be a liar? He couldn't even take such a risk.

After all...it's better to be safe than sorry.

Liu Ziming smiled in his heart.

"After all, this is for your own good." He thought sincerely in his heart.

Unfortunately, in addition to Gu Weijing, the first author of that paper also included Katsuko Sakai.

This made Liu Ziming feel a little embarrassed.

Gu Weijing is just an insignificant little person. He can deal with him however he wants and arrange him however he wants.

Katsuko Sakai is different.

Anyway.

Sakai Kazushige is an important person with great weight. The fact that his daughter's name follows Gu Weijing is an invisible protection for him.

If this paper was written by Gu Weijing alone.

Liu Ziming has many ways to make the art world feel that this is an unreliable fake paper.

With the addition of Katsuko Sakai, some things require a little more discussion on methods and approaches.

At least outsiders can't know that he did it.

A small stone on the roadside.

Liu Ziming just threw it into the sea.

But if there was a fat man weighing more than 240 pounds sitting on the stone, even Liu Ziming might have sprained his waist if he didn't pay attention to the technique of exerting force.

"As for the ceremony, please wait a little longer. There is no need to rush it."

Liu Ziming said with a smile.

Once this matter is settled, there will be no need to hold the disciple-taking ceremony.

Who knows.

Old Master Cao shook his head again.

“Everything remains the same.”

The old man said softly.

"Well, don't you want to check whether it's true or not?" Liu Ziming asked doubtfully, "What if... there's something wrong with this paper?"

"Whether the paper is true or false is Gu Weijing's business. True or false, he has done something and he will have to bear the price." Cao shook his head. "But whether to accept a disciple or not is my business."

"Xiao Ning said that I am going too far and am doing the opposite. Only Tang Ning would say this, and it actually makes sense. I have been thinking a lot these days. I found that many times, I have become too impatient, so I am forcing things to happen."

"If this paper is true, then I am very happy and proud of him. I will take him as my disciple."

"If this paper is fake, then I am very disappointed and sad...but." Cao Xuan said in a deep voice.

“I said at the European Art Conference that life is a game with no second chances. No matter what the result is, you have to keep playing. You have to accept failure and also accept making mistakes.”

"I should give people a chance to make mistakes. Children make mistakes... I won't say it's normal, but the mistake is mine, and the problem is also mine. I should give him a chance to correct his mistakes, and I should also give myself a chance to correct my mistakes. This is the price Gu Weijing has to pay, and it is also the price I have to pay."

"This paper is fake—and I tolerate it."

(End of this chapter)