Almighty painter

Chapter 725: The House Number of the Fateful Man

Chapter 725: The House Number of the Fateful Man (Part )

Facing the lens of Oil Painting magazine, the results could be both good and bad.

He ran away early because of fear.

That's really a loss that can't be lost anymore.

Gu Weijing will immediately become the biggest joke of the Lion City Biennale in the next twenty years.

It was never a choice whether he wanted to enter the world of fame and fortune at the Esplanade.

Gu Weijing had no choice.

"No, I won't cancel the next lecture, but I can make the whole interview boring and dull. Just...formulaic answers, or even not talking as much as possible."

Gu Weijing spoke.

He put his cell phone on the table with speakerphone on, and put the items in the suitcase neatly in the hotel room.

Toiletries, cat diapers, and cat leashes for going out.

Shirt, tie, pants.

……

He spoke calmly while sorting out the formal attire he would need to attend a social dinner in the evening.

"Whether to hold a talk or not is not something I can choose. But I can choose to express my true self endlessly or make the whole interview long and boring. I am a contracted painter of a large gallery, and they can let me repeatedly arrange every possible problem in advance to avoid any risk points."

"You know, rehearsed, formulaic responses to every question. Boring, uninteresting, but also... harmless. Like in the movies, where a captured soldier recites his identification number no matter what question the interrogator asks him."

Gu Weijing smiled.

"If someone brings the other person in front of the camera like a prisoner, then naturally they should accept that the other person also behaves like a captive prisoner and doesn't want to say anything. It's fair, isn't it?"

"And, Miss Lampcher, you know what's the best thing about this, compared to interrogating prisoners? You can't use a vise here, can you?"

He told a rather amusing joke.

Lampche didn't laugh.

Over at the Esplanade, the curatorial assistant holding the phone frowned slightly.

Yes.

She understood. She had seen such interviews and lectures before, where the speaker was speaking in a dull and boring tone on the stage, and the guests were about to fall asleep with drooping eyelids.

Instead of answering questions, they hold the answers and wait for questions.

for example.

Gu Weijing could prepare the correct answer in advance - "King Awang is the most handsome cat in the world! The great Awang is the master of the world."

The other party asked: "Tell us about your artistic life?"

He replied: "The inspiration of an artist comes from a moment of emotion, a sense of fate as if a huge force hits the body. Do you know? I have a cat. Whenever I hold King Awang respectfully, I immediately feel this heavy force. I get a revelation that King Awang is the most handsome cat in the world! The great Awang..."

The other party asked: "Okay, let's talk about Henri Matisse. What do you think of Matisse's works?"

He replied: "The works of Fauvism are full of wild vitality. The brushstrokes seem to be pierced by something huge. Do you know? The animal that Matisse loved most in his life was the cat. Many great painters are cat slaves. Perhaps cats give them strength. This reminds me that I also have a cat. Whenever I respectfully hold Awang..."

The other party asked: "Stop, stop, stop! Please stop talking about your cat! Let's change the question. With global warming, environmental protection has become a century-old problem that all mankind needs to face together. As an artist, do you have anything to say about this issue?"

"Environmental protection has become a century-old problem that all mankind needs to face together. As an artist, when painting, you must feel a huge sense of responsibility and destiny, do you know -"

The other person covered his chest with his hands twitching and said, "Do you have a cat named Awang?"

Gu Weijing nodded: "Congratulations, you have learned to answer quickly. King Awang is the most handsome cat in the world. The great Awang should be..."

Host: “Aba Aba…”

Gu Weijing: "King Awang is the most handsome cat in the world."

Host: “Hua La Hua La——”

Gu Weijing: "King Awang is the most handsome cat in the world."

finally.

Gu Weijing, the host, and the guests all sang in unison: "King Awang is the most handsome cat in the world! Meow meow meow!"

The core of this answering mode is to prepare several standard template answers such as "A, B, C, D, E, F" in advance.

No matter what questions others ask.

All you have to do is find a way to circle the questions around these few foolproof answers that you've already prepared before you go on stage.

In actual practice, it is certainly not as simple as just preparing one or two sentences and applying them mechanically.

but.

The curatorial assistant also knew it very well, whether it was simple or not.

If the other party has a large gallery behind them and is well prepared in advance, then they can really come up with a safe answer for every possible problem.

The marketing and public relations teams of top galleries are very, very professional.

Dealing with interviews and the media and avoiding possible risks are the daily work of these people.

They can blow empty beer and drink cans so hard that they are almost invisible in the sky or on the ground, and they write commentary and soft articles in newspapers, marketing their products as if they were used by Santa Claus.

They can also help artists avoid any "ethical" risks as much as possible when facing news cameras, from environmental protection and rising sea levels to why the earth is round and whether pineapple should be added to Italian pizza. They say everything, but if you think about it carefully, it seems as if they have said nothing.

For Gu Weijing, this was certainly not the best response.

No.

It's not even a good response.

No one is stupid.

Ordinary audiences are not, nor are the guests on the organizing committee and the judges of the art exhibition, and even less are the interview team of "Oil Painting".

Is Gu Weijing avoiding the problem? Is he avoiding the focus of the fraud controversy? Is he just doing things perfunctorily?

Everyone knows it very well.

The audience will leave, the judges will sleep, play with their phones, and curse "MMP" to their friends in the group. The interview team of "Oil Painting" will also go crazy.

But that's about it.

It was just like the joke Gu Weijing had just said: "There are no pliers here."

No matter how fierce and strong Miss Elena's personality is, or how sharp her words are, she is just a woman in a wheelchair after all.

Gu Weijing was really determined to play the game of smooth talk, practice Tai Chi, and apply the slippery and greasy method taught by Teacher Yang.

She couldn't really pull out a pair of pliers from somewhere, smash this guy's head in, and get the answer she wanted out of his mouth, right?

Maybe.

Gu Weijing would leave a very bad impression on the Oil Painting team, and it would be impossible for him to write a few nice words in their interview column.

however--

If this interview really hides a huge unknown pit.

It is better to be careless and fall into a pit and die, and be disgraced.

This is definitely not the worst outcome.

If there is a regret medicine.

Sir Brown must be very regretful that he didn't practice Tai Chi or anything like that at the European Art Conference.

He was just too honest and too proud. At the highest point in his life, he spoke out his true feelings in high spirits, and was slapped in the face by Miss Elena until it was swollen.

Art "archaeology" papers are like this, with too much personal subjective speculation. It is difficult to conduct replication experiments like physics research to confirm with 100% certainty that a certain argument is correct.

The same reason.

Unless you can really find ironclad evidence of fraud and slap someone in the face and completely knock him down, otherwise... it is difficult to be 100% sure that a certain argument is definitely wrong.

As Katsuko Sakai told Anna -

No matter how many doubts their papers seem to have, this is a blank left by history. Unfortunately, no one can go back to that thunderstorm night in 1878 to ask the female painter who painted this picture.

but.

This boring and lengthy conversation that makes people want to sleep is like those TV series with no twists and turns in the plot, or a musical performance with one note played from beginning to end.

It must have been the worst "performance" for all the audience.

It is also the worst for the organizers of the Singapore Biennale.

From their perspective.

Whether it was Gu Weijing's heroic performance, debating with scholars and breaking all doubts, or Gu Weijing was caught by the cat's tail and was scolded by the interview team of "Oil Painting" and was speechless, his face pale and shaky.

It will always be a classic "talk show".

The latter may even be a classic dialogue that will be recorded in the history of the Biennale, and the topic may even be heated up for several years.

But if Gu Weijing was asking and answering questions on the stage, and didn't have a direct conversation with the host, or the conversation was very "boring".

Then, all the organizing committee got was a bunch of garbage.

In a certain sense, an art biennial is a bit like a TV variety show.

They need a lot of traffic.

Traffic represents popularity and cultural influence.

A large number of tourists even means a better boost to the economy of surrounding areas.

From a utilitarian point of view.

A large number of visitors and a lot of discussion mean that the "exhibition" is a success. With such a record, the curator may be able to get more funding next time to hold a bigger exhibition.

The hero dispels doubts, the Joker is revealed for his true colors - these are all good interviews.

Having nothing at all—that’s the real disaster.

In that case, the mood of the organizing committee and the "Oil Painting" team would probably be like that of a host who finds out that the ratings have dropped by 5 percentage points backstage after a variety show is aired.

It's so crazy.

Gu Weijing picked up the shirt and raised his eyebrows slightly.

The clothes were a little wrinkled by the picture frame.

While he was thinking about whether to find an iron to press all his shirts and suits before going to the artist dinner tonight, he said, "Ms. Lampcher, I did get the advice to do this. If necessary, I will have to take this approach."

"It's not really a threat, it's just helplessness."

There was no sense of helplessness in his tone. Gu Weijing folded his shirt on the bed and said, "But if necessary, you can also interpret it as a threat."

"This is your business, your seminar. It's your choice whether to respect it or not."

The curatorial assistant said seriously.

"What does it have to do with us?"

There was a quiet confrontation in the microphone, and Gu Weijing was adjusting the collar of his shirt in silence.

He didn't answer.

He knew that no reply was needed at this moment.

At this moment, there are two kinds of small games between two people to see who can't help blinking first.

After a few seconds.

"If I were you, I would cherish this opportunity and respect it." The voice came again from the other end of the phone.

"If you agree to my request, I will give you a reward." Gu Weijing put down his shirt and spoke softly.

return?

"Return, what do you mean?" Lampche's brows furrowed even more tightly.

“The exhibition has a donation committee.”

Gu Weijing reported an English noun.

"Donation?" Lampche was stunned for a moment, and immediately became alert. "The exhibition officials do not accept any donations for the purpose of bribery. We have an ethical review system."

A large number of international biennials and exhibitions organized by well-known curators are funded by donations from all walks of life.

Many tickets for "Artists' Dinner" can even be sold to the public. While providing a social occasion for artists, it also raises funds for the organizers to cover certain exhibition costs.

Sponsorship itself is even one of the most enduring and important traditions of Western art exhibitions.

Many great European painters in the classical period lived on the small amounts of money from their patrons.

Today, the banking and financial industries are common major sponsors of these art exhibitions.

For example, this year's Lion City Biennale has a sponsorship contract with the UBS Group, which even sponsored some of this year's awards and will provide three to five years of sponsorship fund contracts for artists who win the awards.

of course.

There are sponsors who are bigger, more powerful, richer, and even more passionate about art than the financial industry.

For example, energy companies, tobacco companies, or chemical industries that cause serious pollution.

After all, they are criticized quite harshly by society.

Oil groups love to sponsor art festivals and biennial exhibitions to express their emphasis on "public welfare projects and environmental protection causes."

Overseas tobacco groups also love to carry out similar projects, and will even register a subsidiary specifically to circumvent tobacco-related advertising laws in various countries and do some skirting the rules.

These large business groups are all extremely wealthy and generous in their donations. As long as your art festival is famous enough and the curators dare to take it, they will often sign sponsorship checks for tens of millions of dollars.

The British Taylor Gallery, directed by curator Tonks, is named "Taylor" after the surname of its sponsor, a factory tycoon.

As it should be.

This behavior will also raise a series of industry ethical issues.

"An art project promoting environmental protection sponsored by Shell Oil", "a charity art exhibition for cancer sponsored by British American Tobacco Group"... It's not impossible, but even if the flow of funds is clear and it is really just a pure donation, there will be a feeling of being "kept" by a big sponsor.

The academic discussion originally scheduled for the seminar that was squeezed out by Gu Weijing's symposium was about the moral risks associated with the sources of these sponsorship funds.

Major galleries are also one of the most important partners and sponsors of the Biennale.

The "secret that is not a secret" in the reporter's report - some media said that even the top exhibitions in the industry today, such as the Venice Biennale, which has the longest history, the largest scale and the most influence, cannot avoid various sponsorship contracts.

Traditionally, official financial support from various countries has been considered the mainstay of the Venice Biennale.

But in fact, nowadays a large number of billionaires and top galleries are all investing huge amounts of money in exhibitions year after year to support them.

The specific amount of donation each year is kept confidential.

But due to the particularity of the Biennale.

Top galleries are always diligent in waving their money and putting it into the donation boxes of each exhibition.

Even if the Biennale itself does not provide work sales services, it is an indisputable fact that “awarded a prize at the Biennale last month” and then “sold out at the art fair next month”.

As to whether there is any insider trading, that depends on different people’s opinions.

Overall.

The industry prefers to take checks from private wealthy people.

Some private wealthy people may have other intentions, and hope to gain social prestige, tax exemptions or something else through donations.

But compared to the gallery.

The impact on the independence of the art exhibition itself is relatively small.

For example, the Irene Family Foundation has been one of the traditional important sponsors of the Venice Biennale since World War II.
-
"Whether it is posturing or not, the industry can only pretend to believe that there is a pure art world independent of the commercial world." - New York Art Review
-
Regardless of whether it is truly pure.

At least in public calls, it must be pure.

After hearing what Gu Weijing said, Lan Puche's first reaction was not joy, but vigilance.

For those fake exhibitions, there is no problem in just spending money to buy prizes.

Given the level and scale of the Singapore Biennale, no matter how much money is spent, it is impossible for the curatorial assistant to clearly express his intention to open a backdoor for you if you donate.

Taking a step back, even if this kind of thing really happened, we can't say it openly.

Pass it on at any point.

They are all huge scandals.

This guy, wouldn't he secretly record the phone call?
"Don't get me wrong, it's not a bribe, nor is it a donation."

Gu Weijing said.

Donating is one way.

If you just want to buy a ticket to attend the social dinner, meet Tonks, have the curator raise a champagne glass and say a few polite words to you, take a photo and post it on WeChat Moments or something.

Gu Weijing estimated that $10,000 to $20,000 would probably be enough.

But if you want to talk about something in depth in private and have others treat you seriously, I'm afraid you'll have to at least add another zero to the check.

Not to mention whether Gu Weijing’s current bank account can take out such a large sum of money.

Nor is it mentioned whether such donations with obvious purposes can be classified as pure charitable acts by a very strict system.

Even if it's okay.

Gu Weijing was also unwilling to do so.

There is direct financial transactions between the individual participating painters and the organizing committee of the Biennale, which is ultimately a matter of course and difficult to deal with.

"Then you are..." The curatorial assistant's voice was filled with confusion.

"I will donate an extra painting to the Singapore Biennale Organizing Committee." Gu Weijing had already made this plan.

There are two kinds of works in the Biennale.

At art exhibitions like the Venice Biennale, the vast majority of works are for sale.

For sale at exhibitions.

Or sell it at Art Basel or in your own gallery.

Some works will also be donated directly to the organizing committee.

After the exhibition, the works can be taken to other places for tour, put in museums for collection, or even auctioned to raise funds for charity.

It can be considered as a work presented by the painter to the organizing committee.

"Your painting 'Human Noise'?" Lampche was amused again. "What the hell? You've gone through so much trouble, and you're still just..."

"It's 'The Old Church on a Thunderstorm'."

Gu Weijing said.

The curatorial assistant's voice suddenly stopped.

This answer seemed to have disrupted her train of thought, and for a moment, her mind went blank.

"You...you, are you going to turn that paper into a work and donate it to the organizing committee of the Singapore Biennale?"

a long time.

Lampche spoke hesitantly.

"you sure?"

She had obviously read the article in "Asian Art". At least, she must know what Gu Weijing meant by "The Old Church in the Thunderstorm".

"Yes, but what I will give to the organizing committee is not the original work in the paper, but a copy I drew myself. Also, it is my personal gratitude and friendship, if you are willing to help me with this favor."

Gu Weijing said.

Imitations cannot be exhibited in the main exhibition area of ​​the Biennale, but there is no such restriction for purely charitable donations.

Lampche smiled helplessly.

"Young man, your joke is not funny at all. Your imitation? Maybe you think you are special-"

"This is not a joke, this is not funny."

Gu Weijing directly interrupted the curatorial assistant's ridicule.

"This is a serious, serious matter."

He put Awang's cat litter box in the corner of the hotel and said, "Bonnie, can I call you that?"

"No, you can continue to call me Ms. Lampcher."

"You see, Ms. Lampcher, this is the problem. You don't think our relationship is at the point where we can call each other by our names, but you keep calling me Young man. You don't respect me enough, do you?"

"I don't know if you know me well enough. Yes, I am eighteen years old. I am a young man. But at the age of eighteen, I was shortlisted for the main exhibition area of ​​the Singapore International Biennale. The eighteen-year-old young man who is talking to you now has a cover article in an important art journal in Asia as the first author. The world's top galleries have extended olive branches to him and are even considering preparing a personal exhibition for him."

"Everyone who is around me and knows me believes that I will become an important painter one day in the future."

"Among them are top art masters worth billions, neoclassical oil painters, or watercolor masters renowned in Europe."

“Every one of them respects me.”

(End of this chapter)

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