Almighty painter

Chapter 714: Miss Elena VS Miss Sakai (Part )

When we arrived at the stall called "Liu Ji Fish Fillet Hot Pot", I didn't know if it was because it was a small community store or because it was not lunchtime at three or four o'clock.

There are not many customers.

Lao Yang arranged for Gu Weijing to find a place to sit down, and then he swung his arms and rushed to the seafood tank at the door to excitedly pick out Dungeness crabs and Chinese mitten crabs.

Gu Weijing was silent for a moment.

He took out the notebook that Koko gave him.

I thought about it.

Gu Weijing took out a pen and wrote on the first page, the first line, in early July 2023: "No. 01 Reason I like Miss Koko: You are really brave."

Then he took out his mobile phone, added the country code written by Koko on it, and then entered the first eight digits one by one, and added "01" at the end, and clicked to call out.

No surprises.

There wasn't even the beeping sound from the telephone receiver, which would have made people imagine the waiting.

After a moment of silence, the phone receiver was alerted by the operator that the number was no longer in service.

Gu Weijing shook his head, but he wasn't too disappointed.

If the game were reversed and Miss Koko had to guess his phone number, would she be able to guess it right away?

he does not know.

Gu Weijing definitely doesn't have this ability.

All he could do was guess the numbers one by one in order, using the most stupid method to exhaust them.

He put the notebook away again.

I fed the freshly dead fish that the seafood stall owner kindly sent to Awang in the suitcase.

The small fish had been cut into small pieces for the cats to eat, but the King of Cats turned his head away and refused to eat it.

Awang is very smart when it comes to eating.

Its pickiness about food is increasing day by day along with Miss Sakai's canned food.

The daily meal allowance is much more expensive than Xiao Gu Zi’s.

Look.

Smelling the aroma of steaming seafood in the air, it realized that this was the place to eat.

Awang simply looked down on the rotten fish and shrimp served by Xiao Guzi. He was probably planning to grab the steamed Chinese mitten crab on the table later.

It didn't eat, and Gu Weijing didn't bother to pay attention to it.

He took out his mobile phone, took a photo of the dining table, and sent it to his family group to tell his grandfather that he had finally arrived in Singapore safely.

There are no surprises this time, don't worry.

Before, when he confessed to his grandfather that he did not get on the plane, the most dangerous moment had already passed, but the old man was still very worried and almost came back from England.

Then, he began to clean up the information accumulated on the social software during this period one by one.

In just two weeks.

Rabbits rise and foxes fall, one great change follows another.

Gu Lin's matter, Grandpa's matter, Shengzi's matter, Hao Ge's matter, and the exhibition, the organizing committee and Mr. Cao...

There were so many things happening and they were so complicated.

Gu Weijing is very busy every day.

Even so, he still missed a lot of things regretfully.

Not only did he fail to make it to the opening ceremony of his first art biennial.

For the first time in his life, he rejected Mr. Sloth's invitation.

Oh.

To describe it accurately, it was not "Detective Cat" who rejected Mr. Sloth's invitation, but "Gu Weijing" who rejected Mr. Sloth's invitation.

The matter is related to a paper published in Asian Art.

Podcasts have become very popular on streaming media in recent years. Even business tycoons such as Bill Gates and Elon Musk, and even top celebrities such as LeBron James and Brad Pitt, have frequently appeared as guests on various podcast programs. This is because compared to traditional radio stations, podcast media, which consists of independent audio "units" of 40 minutes to one or two hours, has a freer scale, often discusses issues in more depth, and has higher fan stickiness.

Compared to those big-production TV news and media interviews.

They are also more timely and can produce a program with a very efficient process, keeping up with trendy trends and at a lower production cost.

even.

As long as the content is good enough and the guests are senior enough, a podcast made entirely with an iPhone can still have hundreds of thousands of views and be reposted by many people.

Especially for podcasts hosted by a single person, the two characteristics of professionalism and efficiency are brought to the fullest.

Mr. Sloth is indeed a very powerful person.

The paper "The Forgotten Female Painter" published by Gu Weijing and Sakai Katsuko has sparked increasing controversy and discussion in the academic community.

Last week.

He was still reeling from the aftermath of the Hao Ge incident, and he actually received a friend request from Mr. Sloth on his social account.

It is also unclear how Mr. Sloth found his way to the door.

That was Gu Weijing's private social account, a WhatsApp account known only to a small circle of family members and friends.

When Gu Weijing saw the familiar profile picture of Mr. Sloth in the new friend request column.

He thought he had run out of ideas for a moment. Mr. Sloth poked through his vest with his claws and found him.

When Gu Weijing thought about how Detective Cat had always pretended to be a 30-year-old African sister in front of outsiders ever since she started taking orders to sell illustrations online, she felt so conflicted that she almost wanted to find a crack in the ground to crawl into.

After his application was approved and the other party stated their purpose, he breathed a sigh of relief.

It turned out to be a misunderstanding.

Mr. Sloth was really looking for "Gu Weijing" rather than "Detective Cat". She wanted to talk about the paper she wrote.

Change to any other situation.

Gu Weijing would never refuse Mr. Sloth's invitation.

Unfortunately, it happened that at that time, he had just escaped from Xihe Guild Hall, and the chain reaction caused by Hao Ge's downfall was still continuing, so he would miss the exhibition.

He really couldn't spare the time, so he tactfully asked if we could talk about it later.

Mr. Sloth probably thought that his response was a polite refusal and evasion.

The other party was obviously a little disappointed.

But I didn't force it.

However, Gu Weijing has always felt guilty about this matter.

Now I have finally arrived in Singapore. Anyway, in a week, I will give a talk about "Old Church on a Thunderstorm" at the official symposium of the Biennale.

"Oil Painting" is the top and most important media in the art world.

Miss Anna Elena is the top and most powerful figure in this industry.

Gu Weijing was very grateful to Miss Elena for being willing to support him at the European Art Conference.

I am even more grateful that no matter what the reason, she was willing to name her family museum after "Detective Cat".

However, from a personal emotional perspective.

Miss Elena and Oil Painting Magazine together are still not as close as Mr. Sloth. Anyway, we have to talk.

He was willing to give the first opportunity to talk about the paper in the public domain to Mr. Sloth, so as to attract more traffic to the other party's program.

"Mr. Sloth, I have some free time recently. If you still want to talk about that paper, I am willing to cooperate. Can we make an appointment now?"

Gu Weijing sent a message to Mr. Sloth.

Every time Detective Cat sent a message to Mr. Sloth, he replied quickly.

I don’t know if it’s an illusion, but “Gu Weijing” doesn’t seem to have such good treatment.

The news fell on deaf ears.

There has been no response yet.

"Here, for the fish I picked, use the fish head to make a soup, add more chili, and add a tray of seafood dumplings. Forget it, let's have Hainanese chicken rice as the staple food. You have a discount on Hainanese chicken rice here, right? You charge for tableware, so we don't need the tableware anymore. We can just take two small bowls ourselves..."

Until Lao Yang, with his little belly shaking and waving his fishing net, directed the guys holding blue seafood baskets to go into the kitchen to work, just like the landlords who directed the laborers in the old society.

Then he appeared at the table with two free small bowls.

Gu Weijing just received a new reply message on his mobile phone.

The message was short, polite, and slightly...formular.

"Thank you, but I'm sorry, the show has already been recorded."

"I look forward to working with you again next time we have the chance."

Gu Weijing read a little bit of the meaning of what Mr. Sloth said to the blonde girl he met at the airport, "I'll contact you later when I have time."

After a few seconds.

Mr. Sloth sent me a link to a new Apple Podcast.

[Salon No. 156: Biennials, auctions, academic papers - Chatting with Katsuko Sakai about the pride and disorder of modern artists]

Gu Weijing stared at the link for a moment.

He has had too much on his plate lately.

He didn't even have time to notice that Mr. Sloth had updated a new program on his personal column homepage this morning.

The guest was——

"Sakai Katsuko".

No wonder he said the show had already been recorded and they needed to wait for the next opportunity to work together again.

Gu Weijing clicked on the link to jump.

He put on his headphones and started playing the show.

Like all of Mr. Sloth’s podcasts, the show begins with a melodious piece of classical music.

Then the music gradually faded away, and the other person's gentle voice interrupted.

"Hello, listeners. I am the host Mr. Folivora. Welcome to this episode of Mr. Sloth's Art Salon. In this salon, I have invited a very special guest to connect with me remotely. She is the global youth artist promotion ambassador from Tokyo Gallery + BTAP, a young painter, Ms. Sakai Takakura."

"Sakai, can you please say hello to everyone and introduce yourself?"

Mr. Sloth said.

"Hello everyone."

"I'm Sakai Takakura."

Katsuko Sakai's voice sounded in the headphones.

A very brief self-introduction.

Gu Weijing once heard his own voice as "Detective Cat" after using a voice changer on Mr. Sloth's show.

Very strange.

A little familiar again.

At this moment, hearing Katsuko Sakai's voice in the headphones was another very strange experience for Gu Weijing.

A little strange.

And very familiar.

In a moment.

Gu Weijing seemed to be back to that day in the square of the Shwedagon Pagoda, when he met the brother and sister Sakai Katsuko and Sakai Tsunamasa for the first time and saw the scene when Katsuko smiled at him.

A gentle tone rang in my ears.

The gentle girl seemed to be standing in front of him again, smiling at him.

"Sakai Katsuko is probably the youngest guest I've ever invited to appear on my show since it started."

"Ms. Sakai should be only 18 years old this year?" asked Mr. Sloth.

"Yes."

“For a long time, the focus of the show has always been on a very macro perspective. We have talked about many interesting events in art history and have done many art interpretations and painting appreciations, but... I noticed that we rarely zoom in on the scale of a person and understand everything that is happening in modern art society from the perspective of an artist's personal career. So, it is a great honor to invite Ms. Shengzi to be a guest on the show today.”

Mr. Sloth said: "Some listeners may not know. Ms. Katsuko Sakai is the daughter of artist Kazunari Sakai. Kazunari Sakai is very famous. He is a very important and well-known painter in contemporary Asian society. Ms. Katsuko herself is also preparing for her first art biennial in her life during the recording of the program."

"At the moment of our program recording, if I am not mistaken, you should be in Singapore right now?"

"Yes. The Esplanade, Singapore, is hosting the seventh 'Human Noise' International Art Biennale. This is the first biennale in my life..."
-
In the art salon where Gu Weijing was listening to Mr. Sloth on his headphones, Lao Yang was rubbing his hands in anticipation of Hainanese chicken rice and Chinese mitten crab being served, while Awang was meowing and waving his cat fists in anticipation of snatching Lao Yang's big chicken leg and Chinese mitten crab to eat at the same time and in the same city.

The straight-line distance is less than ten kilometers.

The Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay, Singapore.

Miss Elena was also listening to the replay of the podcast in her headphones.

The Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay is a landmark building in Singapore and covers a large area.

At night, ocean-going merchant ships passing through the Strait of Malacca can see its silver curved dome reflecting lights from afar.

Not all huge buildings can be used to hold art exhibitions.

It is divided into a central hall, concert hall, opera house, recital room, stage play, and visual arts center.

The only part of the building that can actually be used to host the Biennale is the entire Visual Arts Center and part of the central hall on the first floor.

Considering the scale of the Biennale, it seems a bit crowded.

The first day of the Biennale is often the day with the largest number of tourists due to activities such as the opening ceremony and artist meetings.

Therefore.

Even though it was already afternoon, it would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that the Biennale venue was crowded with people. Instead, it would be an appropriate term to say that it was bustling with people.

There are many people.

There was no one making loud noises, but the overall atmosphere of the exhibition was still several orders of magnitude noisier than ordinary biennials in the past.

Only in the center of the exhibition hall, in front of an independent booth called "Cats and Singapore".

Everyone passing by.

Then they all involuntarily fell silent.

I don’t know if it was the various “cats” lined up on the stand that kept them quiet, or the people before the “cats” that kept them quiet.

(End of this chapter)