Almighty painter

Chapter 759 New Booth (Part )
"Mr. Tonks."

In midsummer in Singapore, Gu Weijing stood on the balcony of the Raffles Hotel, surrounded by a group of moths flying back and forth in the chaotic intersection of light and darkness, surrounded by a retro round chandelier. A British gentleman with a small belly and wearing a high-end suit stood silently behind him.

Tonks is the mastermind behind the entire art exhibition.

Since Anna had no interest in returning to the party, he was the most powerful person here... at least one of the most influential people.

In the entire banquet hall, there were only a few people whose status could be compared with his.

Gu Weijing was speaking calmly, and Tonks slightly opened her eyelids, frowned and listened attentively. Now the positions of the two and the subconscious postures revealed between their bodies made it seem as if he had become the young man's servant.

"But—" His lips parted slightly.

"I do have something to exchange, so I think this is a fair trade." Gu Weijing's clear voice was like the light of a chandelier, spreading in the darkness in front of him, as if it came from far away. "But I have also deeply realized one thing -"

He pursed his lips.

“In this world, there are only very, very few people who can be as lucky as I am and have everything I have.”

“In the art world, how many young people wearing old shirts have what I have? Most of them have no experience, no good galleries, no art promoters, no solid resumes and no resources. At the starting point of life, when they first stepped onto this stage, they had nothing except the brush in their hands and their ambitions and dreams about art.”

"They are not me now. They are you in the past. They are poor boys who can only stand in the sun for three days and three nights to get a chance to show themselves. Most of them may not even meet a kind Mr. Jimmy who is willing to sponsor a sheep show. No one will stop for them."

This deal, which seems fair to Gu Weijing, is unfair to most people.

"Just now I was in a cafe, talking about art with someone. We talked about Carroll, the protagonist of my paper, and we mentioned Van Gogh's life."

Gu Weijing's voice became dazed.

He imagined the generations of young painters who had experienced what he, Tonks, had described.

How many young people with ambitions and dreams come here with their own interpretation and expression of beauty, arrive at the gate of an art exhibition or painting salon, gaze at the brightly lit celebrity dinner from afar, but are unable to enter.

They didn't get any light to illuminate their future, but only ridicule and sneers.

Do they feel lonely?

Are they cold?
Have they ever felt deeply disappointed with the world? Have they ever felt resentful or discouraged?

Before those painters felt hopeless, was there anyone who hugged them? Was there anyone who made them feel warm for a moment?

Is the hard glass that blocks them their own mediocrity? Their shallow understanding of art? Or something else?

Are there ten things in the twelve curatorial steps of an exhibition that have nothing to do with art?

this moment.

Gu Weijing thought of many people.

Gu Weijing thought of Carroll, he thought of Van Gogh, and he thought of Uncle Sakai who wanted to commit suicide by burning charcoal.

He thought of Mr. Cao again.

Cao Xuan jokingly said that he had hardly suffered from poverty and obscurity in his life, but was that really the case? He knew that before he gained such a great reputation and won those awards miraculously, Cao Xuan's first half of his European career also had many ups and downs and setbacks.

What was stopping him?

Something within art, or something outside of art?
Nowadays, if someone says that Asians are not good at art, it is just like someone says that Asians are not good at math. It is no longer a question of discrimination or not. People may think that your IQ may be problematic and they will be too lazy to pay attention to you. It is enough to express their contempt with disdain.

But what kind of history is behind this change in perception?

A hundred years ago, the arguments about superior and inferior races were the most prevalent and rampant.

When one after another, students from the East obtained first-class degrees from Yale, Cambridge, and Oxford, and got first place in countless exams in the private land of Western elites, no one would think that the yellow race was mentally retarded anymore. However, in the Western world, one of the most influential Asian paintings became Fu Manchu, who had a Shakespearean beard, a Satanic face, long eyes, a thin beard, a green glow, and doctoral degrees from multiple universities.

The Irina family's difficulties with his thesis were unfair.

But maybe - reality is just unfair.

How could the social injustice at that time be limited to the injustice of wealth that hindered Van Gogh and the injustice of gender that hindered Carroll?
Did similar things also happen to Cao Xuan?
When Cao Xuan brought his works to the Paris Art Salon for the first time, did he feel isolated, helpless, and ignored, as he does today? How did he get through it all?
Gu Weijing stood on the balcony.

In the distance to his right, orange-red light sprinkled on the sea, a light that was countless times brighter and more dazzling than the small chandelier on the balcony of the hotel beside him - the entire Esplanade was like a huge chandelier hanging on the coastline, illuminating the distant sea like a half-hidden red sun, sparkling with light.

Behind the Esplanade, further away, is the Lion City’s skyline, which is dazzled by colorful neon lights at night.

The high and low rainbow lights are connected into a line, which is the sea of ​​clouds lit by the sun.

This moth was very close to the "lantern" on the sea and the burning sea of ​​clouds above the sea. It was so close that it could touch it with just a slight flap of its wings.

What blocked Gu Weijing was not hard glass.

It is a layer of soft window paper.

He learned to be more flexible, to be thick-skinned, to act more pitiful, to make more phone calls, to cry more, to smile more. The window paper was easily broken by other elders.

It's more than just breaking the window paper.

Even if it was glass, the Elena family could open the entire window for him. Not only the window, but Anna also opened the door. As long as she was happy and he was willing to bow his head, it would be no problem even if the entire wall was demolished.

However, Gu Weijing couldn't help thinking about it.

Back then, Mr. Cao Xuan also had a phone to call, and all he had to do was find someone to cry a little more, laugh a little more, and act a little more pitiful, would that person be able to help him open this wall and break that window?

"While drinking coffee, she casually read to me a sermon that Van Gogh gave in Richmond, England, during his career as a missionary, as an annotation of his life - the ancient faith, the beautiful faith, will always remain in my heart. Life is a pilgrimage, everyone is a traveler, and no one is alone, because the Heavenly Father will be with us forever. We are pilgrims, and our lives are a long journey from reality to heaven."

On the one hand, Miss Elena's true face made Gu Weijing disappointed and angry. On the other hand, Gu Weijing, who was shrouded in disappointment and anger, still admired Anna's conversation and knowledge in the field of art.

The conversation with Anna gave Gu Weijing the illusion for a moment that he was having a voice chat with Mr. Sloth.

She could talk about any material, any past events in the life of any painter, with ease and familiarity, as if they were her own house number. She always understood his thoughts just right and supplemented his views with additional information.

At least at this point, the reputation of the Elena family does not seem to be entirely gained through coercion and inducement through wealth and power.

"I told her that words like heaven, faith, and pilgrimage can be interpreted in a non-religious way. Van Gogh spent his entire life on pilgrimage, not toward the paradise imagined by the secular world, but toward the palace of art in his personal imagination. In a religious sense, the one who was with him was the Heavenly Father, and in an artistic sense, the one who was with him was art itself."

"The most outstanding thing about Van Gogh is that he chose a difficult path for himself. Van Gogh's greatness lies in the fact that he never compromised with secular rules in order to succeed in his life."

"The destitute Van Gogh embraced his own destitution."

A beautiful soul cannot be bound by the world, and it will speak for itself. Van Gogh had many good opportunities in the art field that others could not get. When he was very young, he got a job at the Bellin Museum in London and Paris. The Bellin Museum, also known as the Bellin Gallery, was an important art gallery and art trading middleman in early France. It still exists today and has participated in the restoration of Notre Dame de Paris in the past two years.

In the era when Van Gogh lived, the status of the Gobelins Museum was equivalent to that of today's Gagosian, Meuse or CDX. It's just that the art market at that time was far less hot than it is today, and the social status of artists was lower. For ordinary petty bourgeoisie, being able to get such a position could be considered a respectable position.

And Van Gogh himself ran away.

He despised such work, believing that it sacrificed the value of art itself for money, and that the works produced were nothing more than third-rate works of art serving a group of wealthy and idle urban petty bourgeoisie who were trying to be pretentious.

After working for a while, Van Gogh could not stand this kind of work content. He thought that working in a luxurious high-end gallery was completely meaningless.

He should spend his life on more meaningful work.

then.

He quit his job at the Berlin Gallery in Paris and went to a church school in a remote pastoral area, choosing to teach a group of poor children in that cold, damp and water-filled school.

"Mr. Tonks, I am not seeking pity. I am not pitiful. I am not a person with nothing. Because of this, I think I should have a chance to embrace Van Gogh. I should have a chance to embrace all the young people who wear old shirts and have nothing."

Tonks sighed softly.

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It sounds like Gu Weijing's speech is unwilling to come up with a "quote" that matches the booth, and he wants to make a tricky statement to get something for nothing.

Perhaps his tone was too firm.

The curator believed that what the other party said was sincere, but... he was a little too idealistic.

Children always think that youth is their capital, that youth means inexhaustible opportunities, that they are born to be the darlings of fate, and that the goddess of luck will always wave to them again and again.

Only when you reach his age will you understand.

No matter how gifted and talented you are, the opportunities you can have in your life are very limited. If you don't seize the opportunities when you can, and don't pay the price when you can, then you will have no choice but to exchange them for success and squander them extravagantly.

The next opportunity may never come.

Kazunari Sakai realized that he might have messed up his first and perhaps last gallery contract, and he would cry and want to commit suicide, and then be beaten by Mrs. Sakai. If Tonks had not been able to turn the dairy exhibition into a sheep exhibition, he might have gone from being a failed young man wearing old shirts, having nothing, and on the verge of bankruptcy to a failed uncle wearing old shirts, having nothing, and on the verge of bankruptcy.

"I understand you, you are still young, there are some things you still—"

"You know what, Mr. Tonks?" Gu Weijing interrupted him, "In the past six months, people have repeatedly told me that I am still young and naive, and that there are some things I don't understand. I will understand them when I grow up."

"Do not."

"I now know exactly what I am doing. You know, a moth may choose not to fly into a flame, and a person may choose not to embrace success. Wearing high-end suits, a gold watch, driving a Jaguar, and being successful. These are all very good things, and I yearn for them, but if I have to pay a price I don't want to pay, maybe I don't want to."

“If I can’t earn this through my artwork, then maybe it shouldn’t belong to me.”

Gu Weijing's voice was gentle but hard as iron.

“I don’t have to participate in the Singapore Biennale. I don’t have to get a new booth.”

Van Gogh must have been really crazy.

No one knows why Van Gogh chose to commit suicide in the year when his career was reaching its peak of glory.

Was it his family, friends, or the mental issues that always loomed over him that influenced his decision?

No one knows the answer.

Gu Weijing imagined that no matter what the reason was that prompted him to shoot himself in the head in July 1890, it was definitely not desolation and unwillingness.

Why would Van Gogh be unwilling to accept his downfall?

Unlike others, choosing to be destitute and live in seclusion, shouldn’t that be the greatest pride of Van Gogh’s life?
He is different from others, he has the talent of never feeling lonely, he has been moving towards his ideal heaven, the temple of art in his imagination all his life. In exchange, the temple of art is promised to him, and he will be accompanied by faith.

“You told me that there are twelve complete steps to curating an exhibition, and only one or two of them are completely related to art.”

Gu Weijing smiled gently.

"Then I say, to paint a picture...it's hard to say how many steps there are. But each one is related to art."

Tonks was silent for a moment.

He shrugged.

"Okay, this is your decision, I respect you, and I have nothing to lose anyway."

The British uncle turned around again and walked towards the banquet hall, as if he had completely given up communicating with this stubborn guy.

Tonks really couldn't understand the other person.

At first he thought the other person was a cynical child, then he thought he was a simple young man, and now he thought this guy was simply unreasonable.

Like a psychopath with a problem in his brain.

Like——

It's Van Gogh.

The moment he stepped into the bustling conference hall, he stopped hesitantly.

"Okay, okay, okay. There's really nothing I can do about you."

Tonks turned her head back in inexplicable annoyance and rushed back.

"Go find Bonnie, ask for my contact information, and send me the work. Be detailed, with dimensions and stuff. That's it, end of conversation."

He poked Gu Weijing's shoulders hard twice.

"Young man, you'd better come up with a good enough work. Don't be complacent, young man, don't be complacent. Don't take this as some kind of promise. I can't promise you anything."

finished,

Tonks strode out onto the balcony with her belly bulging and her head held high.

(End of this chapter)