Almighty painter

Chapter 754 Take action
This video, as evidence, is enough to accurately link Gu Weijing and Hao Ge in the eyes of the public.

The melon field does not accept the shoes, and the plum blossoms do not hold the crown.

If he was innocent, why would he appear in the residence of the counterfeit godfather?
He even drove Brother Hao's Bentley, how could he still be innocent?
Basong is well aware of how gossip works.

The audience outside the world of fame and fortune looks at the lives of celebrities under the spotlight. They naturally desire to explore privacy, naturally desire to touch upon the truth that cannot be told, and naturally desire the joy and satisfaction of solving cases that conspiracy theories can bring.

Everyone despises authority.

Everyone blindly follows authority.

A photo of a male artist holding hands with a girl can lead to gossip about a whole melodramatic love affair.

If reporters photographed boys frequently entering and leaving Michael Jackson's estate, it would become ironclad evidence that the pop king was keeping a "pedophile" at home in the gossip carnival.

Then the surveillance footage of Gu Weijing entering and leaving Hao Ge's manor could naturally be used as ironclad evidence of an unclear connection between a young man who was shortlisted for the main exhibition area of ​​the Biennale at the age of 18 and a money laundering gang.

It never mattered what the relationship was between them.

It is a natural sin for an artist to appear in a place where he should not be and to be involved with a person who should not be involved.

Sakai Issei saw this matter very clearly. The soft and bouncy fat uncle had a very clear mind, so as soon as Brother Hao made a move, Uncle Sakai ran away quickly with his wife and children.

It wasn't about money in the first place.

The crux of the matter has never been about money, or even about the power of connections.

Uncle Sakai really wasn't reluctant to part with the one million dollars. He had always been very nice to Gu Weijing and he wasn't unwilling to help.

But given his status, nothing he did would be appropriate.

Hao Ge is like a crispy chicken breast grilled with scallions over charcoal.

If Kazunari Sakai was caught by his wife at one o'clock in the morning, sitting at a street snack stall, holding a sizzling chicken breast and green onion grilled bird in his hand and pouting his nose.

He was being stubborn, "Wife, wife, listen to my explanation! I'm just looking, just looking, just for fun, to satisfy my eyes, I won't really eat it! Baa, baa, baa."

Guess if the blonde aunt is willing to believe his lies!

Guess whether the public is willing to believe Gu Weijing’s lies?
It doesn’t matter whether Brother Hao is dog shit or a puddle of yellow mud. Regardless of whether it is shit or not, considering his identity, even for Shengzi’s future, he should not and cannot have anything to do with such a person.

"Great, that's what I wanted."

Liu Ziming nodded, and it was unclear whether he was satisfied with his own judgment or with Basong's work.

"Not only that, there is a second one, and the second one should be more important."

Basong also had a rather mysterious smile on his face, indicating that the real highlight had not yet begun.

This is where he is at his best.

Powerful paparazzi often have their own secret recipes for digging up dirt.

But Basong has more than just a secret recipe.

He is so successful in this industry, with business scope spanning across Southeast Asian countries. He is always able to dig up the most explosive scandals, which makes many brokerage companies hate him to the core, but they have to tolerate him with a pinch of nose. The secret is that he can not only dig up scandals, but he can also produce them in a targeted manner.

Basong told Liu Ziming that he was A Luozuo.

The reason why Lorenzo in "Training Day" can be so powerful on the streets and become a senior detective admired by newcomers in the Los Angeles Police Department is never because he has a Sherlock Holmes-like nose for solving cases. It is that when Lorenzo wants to arrest someone, drugs or bullets will appear on the bodies of gang members, and when he kills the target, the black gun that attacked the police will appear in the hands of the other party's corpse.

If Basong wants to eat carrion, the carrion will appear out of thin air from the target's body.

Shoot first, then draw the target.

Naturally, you can be a 100% accurate marksman.

This commission was not to hire Basong to investigate Gu Weijing's background, and the $200,000 certainly wasn't to ask him to check Gu Weijing's high school transcript.

Mr. Liu's commission had a clear purpose. He wanted to obtain the paper that Gu Weijing published in "Asian Art" more than a month ago, which contained irrefutable evidence of academic fraud.

Such a commission seemed a little unfamiliar to Basong.

He once caused a singer to be caught in a whirlpool of public opinion for plagiarism, and he also got involved in scandals, revealing that a Thai drama star had faked his background of studying in the UK.

Hammering an art paper for academic misconduct?
The mission is a little too specialized.

Basong doesn't understand academic papers.

Fortunately, he happened to know how to beat people, and he knew it very well.

If hammering is a profession, then Miss Irena must be a master of it. She is a senior player of the academic school, like Turner and Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Society of Arts.

in contrast.

Basong brought the wild fox Zen to its peak and was also a master of it.

No matter what outsiders think.

Bassone considers himself to be the "Van Gogh" of them.

He still wrote the composition that Liu Ziming wanted in a very short time.

The middle-aged man stopped the video file that was fast-forwarding on the computer and opened another remaining video.

The footage from the handheld camcorder fills the entire computer screen.

This time it was not a TV interview footage, nor was it CCTV surveillance.

It appeared that the meeting took place in a small room with two disposable water cups on the table. The man in the camera was wearing prison clothes, with one hand handcuffed to the table, and looked dejected.

"A private meeting arranged by the lawyer, of course, with a little bribery..."

Basong explained to Liu Ziming that he asked the other party to pay an additional fee of US$5 in advance, but that not only went into his own pocket.

Liu Ziming didn't care at all how this meeting came about.

He looked at the screen.

"Gu Weijing... I, I heard about him a long time ago. Sir, uh, Brother Hao seems to particularly appreciate him." The man with his head lowered said softly, "When I was drinking, I heard Brother Wu say that the boss had planned to give him a sports car."

There are manually added English subtitles below the video.

The subtitles simply explain that the man speaking is an arrested member of Haoge's art counterfeiting group, responsible for some auction transactions with Europe.

The Angkor he mentioned was his superior.

"Wait, can you elaborate?"

There was a sound outside the camera, and a hand pushed a large printed photo onto the table.

The camera zoomed in, and it was exactly the Bentley sports car that had appeared in the surveillance video and the report on the closure of the Xihe Club. The only difference was that for some reason, the Bentley in the news report seemed to have been bumped and scratched in many places, and even the crystal headlights were broken.

"Yes, I saw him in the parking lot of the club--"

"Stop and tell me clearly, what did you see? Was it the car in the photo or the Gu Weijing you just mentioned?" The voice interrupted him again.

"This car. A new model Bentley Continental. Very eye-catching. Many people are jealous. Gu Weijing also saw it once."

"When and where?"

"Not long ago, two weeks ago? I can't remember the exact time. The location was in Xihe Hall, but an order was passed down at the time that no one was allowed to disturb him. I just saw him from a distance. As I said, he has a very high status and Brother Hao seems to like him very much. The good thing seems to be-"

"Like what?"

"Like a son."

"Or successor?" The person asking the question seemed to prefer this term.

The sound of handcuffs rubbing against the table.

The man in the camera seemed to want to answer this question with a noncommittal shrug, but he was held back by handcuffs.

……

"Okay, let's get back to the car. The new Bentley Continental? It should be very expensive. Sorry, I want to ask something off topic. Is there a Bentley sales point in Yangon?"

"It was flown in from abroad, but I heard it's not a smuggled car. It's a new car with all the customs formalities completed. It's very expensive."

"Wow. Is that Hao brother so generous? He just casually gives a ten-year-old kid an imported super luxury sports car worth hundreds of thousands of dollars? The benefits in your industry are so good that I even want to work for him." The male voice said sarcastically in an exaggerated tone.

"I told you, Brother Hao seems to admire him very much. That Gu...Gu or something."

"Gu Weijing."

"Correct."

"Brother Hao is indeed very generous to his subordinates. As long as they have made contributions, they will be rewarded. Just ask around, everyone will say the same thing." The handcuffed man seemed to think that the person recording the video did not believe him, so he added an additional explanation, "But...giving someone a Bentley...this kind of thing is not common for the boss. So many of us old people...are a little jealous."

"Why did Brother Hao give him a Bentley?"

"I don't know. Gu Weijing...his existence has always been mysterious." "You said that Brother Hao is very generous to his subordinates and is not stingy with his generous rewards to those who have made contributions?"

"Yeah." The man nodded.

The person recording the video chuckled as if he had discovered something interesting: "A Bentley sports car starts at 20 pounds. So I guess Gu Weijing must have made a lot of money for that Hao brother."

The video recording was interrupted for a moment.

The picture inserts a close-up shot of the cover article published by Gu Weijing and Katsuko Sakai in "Asian Art" about the first female Impressionist painter in history, with relevant introduction.

"Does the first female Impressionist painter "Carroll" really exist???"

A line of bold, red English sentences slowly scrolled across the screen.

The sentence ends with three consecutive question marks, the handwriting is as red as blood, like an angry question.

"We noticed that a research paper on Impressionism, co-authored by Gu Weijing and the eldest daughter of the famous artist Kazunari Sakai, has recently caused widespread discussion in the industry. They proposed that "Carol" was the first female Impressionist painter in history.

"Carroll is an artistic master who has never been recognized by the academic community before," Gu Weijing wrote in his paper.

Read the error-free version at 69shuba! 6=9+shu_ba is the first to publish this novel.

caution.

So far, the only painting that has been “confirmed” to be Carroll’s, “Old Church on a Thunderstorm,” is in the possession of the young essayist himself.”

Followed by.

The screen began to scroll again on the "Oil Painting" section forum, where doubts about the authenticity of the origin of the painting "Old Church in a Thunderstorm" had appeared in recent days.

The replies to the discussion posts were magnified on the screen, and they were all full of questions.

"As soon as I heard the title of this paper, I knew what the plot was. Is the trick of "Savior" going to be played again?"

"fraud."

"Someone has started to hype up a new concept in art. Every once in a while, this kind of thing happens in the industry."

"I don't believe this is real."

……

The video finally freezes on a reply from a forum user with an identity verified by a British university.

"After reading the paper, I won't mention the many loopholes in Carroll's identity argument. In fact, the painting itself is not bad, but I just want to know, what is the probability of being able to buy such a good old oil painting at a low price in the flea market? If this is not deliberately arranged, then this guy really should buy a lottery ticket."

A new subtitle narration appeared on the computer screen:

"Rather than opening their wallets to buy a lottery ticket, viewers might be interested in hearing a less coincidental explanation."

“Old Church in a Thunderstorm? Yes, I knew about it a long time ago. It’s an impressionist-style work. A team has been working on this project for a long time.”

The computer screen switched back to the meeting room where lawyers were visiting prisoners.

The camera was now facing another man.

He was wearing the same prison uniform as the interviewee in the previous footage, and one of his hands was handcuffed firmly to the table.

What is different from before is that his face was blurred and his voice seemed to have been processed through post-production voice changing and tuning, covering up the man's original voiceprint characteristics.

The subtitles next to it explain that the man in the camera is an artist who belongs to Hao Ge's counterfeiting team. In order to protect the source of the information and prevent "interested people" from taking revenge, the image and audio track have been post-processed.

"The first female Impressionist? That's a great idea. Very good. Genius."

The man said, "You know, we spent a lot of effort to come up with this idea. The practice in this industry is that we usually spend a lot of effort to pursue the restoration of every detail to reproduce the famous calligraphy and paintings that have existed in history. There are many difficulties in the process, such as brushstrokes, colors, pigment formulas, aging methods, and creative backgrounds. You have to restore each one 100%. You may spend months thinking about a brushstroke, but in the end, the white pigment used was not of the right year, or you used the style that the painter liked at the time, and then it was exposed by the appraisal expert."

"Every step has to be done right," the person recording the video repeated.

"No mistakes. Brother Hao is very strict about this. He deals in long-term business. A painting may cost millions. When buyers pay such a price for a work, no one will take it lightly."

"You're not talking about Myanmar kyat, are you?"

"No, of course I was talking about dollars," he replied.

"Wow." The person recording the video let out a small exclamation.

"I know that. Brother Hao has been struggling for many years because of these various difficulties and the difficulty of... well, no matter how he copies or imitates, it is difficult to reach the artistic conception of the top masters who are famous for their techniques. Therefore, the proportion of fake paintings in his business has become smaller and smaller..."

"Are you saying he's not in the business anymore?" the voice interrupted.

"I mean, he's more of a different way of playing."

"What do you mean?"

"He can speculate on real paintings or even on people - quickly push up the prices of works by certain niche painting schools or young painters, or construct fake auction transactions. Anyway, with the scale of his wealth, there are many ways to do it."

"That sounds like a good idea."

“Yes, but it will also create a series of problems.”

"The most obvious thing is that the prices of these works or painters lack a stable anchor point that can convince the market."

"Can you explain more?" the narrator asked.

"No one in the art market is stupid. A pioneer artist from a certain avant-garde school of painting was still unknown a few months ago, or his works hovered in the range of a few thousand dollars. Within half a year, the price was suddenly raised to millions of dollars. Smart collectors will be aware of the risks. Of course, Interpol's Anti-Money Laundering Office will also be aware of it." The man explained in detail, sounding very experienced. "The essence is that Haoge is rich, but he has no say. He is not Sir Levinson Brown, and he can't be the banker of this price game. It is too difficult to make fake paintings, and he can't drive a solid anchor for them in the trading market for speculating on niche real paintings. That is just straw pushed up by hot money."

"He wants to speculate, but the buyer's guide to Oil Painting magazine won't play along with him."

The man paused.

"So - can you understand Gu Weijing's, uh, or to be more precise, the brilliance of our idea?"

"I think I understand. It's really clever." The voice of the man who was not in the camera sounded, and became a little serious. "But I want to hear you, the client, explain it clearly."

"To put it simply, the two common methods have their advantages, but also their own unsolvable shortcomings. So, we thought - can we combine these two methods? The answer is obvious. If there is a way that allows us to hype 'real fake paintings' or conversely, allows us to make 'fake real paintings', then it would obviously be the best thing." The person being questioned sounded a little smug, as if it was a plan that still excited him when he recalled it now.

"So you invented the existence of a non-existent Carol."

"Yes, that's right. Impressionism is the most important school of painting in the history of European oil painting since the 19th century, or even since Jan van Eyck invented oil painting by improving egg tempera. It is the undisputed leading school of painting. The rules of the art market are such that if you buy some works, they will rise quickly and fall even faster. It is very unstable."

"Like gambling?" the person on the other end asked.

"I think it's more like gambling on jadeite," the man replied. "One cut can make you poor, another can make you rich. Collectors buying these paintings is like making a high-risk investment. They can make people earn a lot of money in a very short period of time, but they can also make them lose everything in an even shorter period of time."

"Buying Impressionist works is like making a stable investment, or like buying gold with money. Their overall prices are very high, and the market is extremely stable. For this reason, any works by famous 19th-century Impressionist artists recognized by collectors are sought after by the market like gold, and are easy to sell, and the transaction speed is often very, very fast."

In the European art market, which schools of painting can consistently sell for sky-high prices?

From the 19th to the 20th century, the last two hundred years, there are mainly three categories: Impressionist painters, Pop Art painters, and Cubist painters.

In terms of Picasso's personal status, he should be the most successful and highest-ranking artist in human history.

Anyone who compares him to Emperor Huizong of Song, or Emperor Qianlong who certainly considered himself a great artist, is just flattering, there is certainly no comparison.

However, Picasso alone stole most of the limelight from Cubism. In terms of the momentum of the entire art movement, it is obviously not as popular as the older Impressionism and the younger Pop Art.

Talk about the number of super oil painters whose single works can sell for more than tens of millions of dollars.

The two are roughly on par with each other.

There are slightly more Impressionist painters than Pop Art painters by one or two.

But when it comes to a single work that can reach the million-dollar range, there are many "ordinary" great oil painters whose prices are not that outrageous.

Impressionism was significantly more numerous than Pop Art.

This is the main collection range for ordinary wealthy people, and the Impressionist style is a bigger piece of the whole market's "cake".

It can be said.

As the rejected candidates of the Salon who were suppressed in the art world, they were members of the small gang of frustrated painters who set up their easels and collected works by the sparkling Seine in the 19s. One hundred and fifty years later, each of their names has become an important part of art history, an inexhaustible gold mine in the art market, and has created one wealth myth after another in the collectors' circle.

"If we can successfully create a story about a fictional impressionist painter, then we will have a money-printing machine."

The man boasted about himself.

“You rely on the Impressionist market price, which is as stable as gold, and this ready-made anchor point to control part of the definition of the art market.”

The voice-over provides a deeper interpretation at the right time.

"Yes, that's the truth."

"I have to pause for confirmation. Although your meaning is very obvious, I still want to hear clear confirmation. You are confirming that Carol - she does not exist, right?"

"of course."

"Carol doesn't exist, Kara doesn't exist, these are all fiction. All the information written in that paper, including the missionary's diary, is fictional, all nonsense. I am an insider, I know it best."

(End of this chapter)