"Mrs. Cruz?"
Over fifty, the gray-haired hotel butler directed the black concierge car to park in front of the courtyard of the Aman suite.
He ignored the slippery ground and trotted towards Mrs. Sakai.
The meticulous butler service of luxury hotels has always been a golden signature created by established global hotel industry giants such as Aman, Hilton and COMO in order to win the favor of high-net-worth customers.
These butlers have received the most professional training and are on call 24 hours a day. Their average age is over forty-five years old, with rich experience and extensive connections.
The butler at the Aman Hotel has two crossed keys proudly embroidered with golden silk thread on the chest of his black custom-made formal suit.
Only the strongest in the field of hotel butlers can obtain this "golden key" honorary certification.
From making sure that the temperature of the bathtub with rose petals in the room is exactly 41.5 degrees Celsius before the guest makes an appointment to check in, to providing professional travel service guides, from providing temporary entrustment relationships with tickets to the opera house football match box, to buying asthma medicine for customers and even They are all professionals when it comes to emergency tracheostomy surgeries.
This golden key butler, whose annual salary is 300,000 US dollars, now looks sweaty on his face.
"The car sent to Miss Sakai is located in Laiyada District. Do you need me to contact the driver to report Miss Sakai's situation? Madam."
The housekeeper wiped the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief.
He knew the identities of the two long-term renters living in this small courtyard.
The wife and daughter of the famous artist Kazunari Sakai.
The young Miss Sakai called a car at night and strolled to the local slums in Yangon.
Sakai Katsuko claimed to have her mother’s permission.
The concierge sent a car without checking, and now the mother seems to be anxious to find her daughter.
The housekeeper didn't know what happened. If something happened to such an underage guest, the reputation of the hotel would be greatly affected, whether it fulfilled its duty to care for the venue or not.
Artists are very difficult to serve. They have great influence in the upper class circles and their energy is even more exaggerated than that of rock stars.
The housekeeper found Mrs. Sakai standing on the corridor at the door, her windbreaker unbuttoned, looking like she was getting ready to go out in a hurry, but she was staring at her mobile phone, motionless, with a complicated expression on her face.
"lady?"
He called softly again.
Mrs. Sakai remained as unresponsive as a statue.
She turned a deaf ear to the housekeeper's shouts and gently zoomed in and out of the screen with her fingers.
The housekeeper glanced at the screen with the corner of his eye and found that it was a very strange piece of work, which probably had not been completed yet.
It’s not like an orthodox oil painting,
The decorative paintings hanging in the corridors of the Aman Hotel are carefully selected, and the housekeepers also have a certain level of art appreciation.
He found that although this painting could only be seen roughly, it was really beautiful.
It is different from the works of art I have seen before. The brushstrokes are exotic and not obscure.
The housekeeper couldn't help but glanced twice subconsciously.
"Does it look good?" Mrs. Sakai asked suddenly.
"I'm so sorry, ma'am, I didn't mean to do that."
The butler immediately took two steps back. He was only concerned about the guest's situation and had no intention of exploring Mrs. Sakai's privacy.
"I'm not blaming you, I'm just asking what you think of this base map."
Mrs. Sakai raised her cell phone towards the housekeeper and asked casually.
"This is Miss Sakai's painting. It is very innovative and should be a good work." The housekeeper knew the general situation of each VIP guest and knew that Miss Sakai herself is a well-known art genius in Asia.
"good?"
Mrs. Sakai shook her head slightly.
She wasn't really asking the hotel staff for their opinion.
Mrs. Sakai was just too surprised.
Just like when you suddenly see a beautiful mirage in the clouds, you will subconsciously want to ask the people around you if it is just an illusion in your mind.
She never expected to see Gu Weijing paint such a work.
A bit perverted!
Excellent technique comes second. This feeling of perfect fusion of Eastern and Western styles already has the standards and prototypes of famous artists.
This is much more eye-catching than simple techniques.
Techniques can be practiced slowly.
It’s just a question of the speed of growth, and many famous artists are unable to achieve this ability to control the collision and integration of cultures.
The way of the master,
Right there.
"It's so shocking. Not only is he good, he is just a little monster. Maybe he and Shengzi can really support each other until the end, maybe."
This idea came to Mrs. Sakai's mind.
"Forget it, children and grandchildren will have their own blessings, let the children do it."
She thought about the battle between heaven and man in her mind for a few seconds, and suddenly felt relaxed.
Mrs. Sakai stamped her feet, turned around and walked back in the direction she came from.
"Mrs. Cruz, you?"
The housekeeper looked at Mrs. Sakai's back in confusion.
"No need to drive, I want to go back to the room to rest." Mrs. Sakai waved her hand, took out her mobile phone from her pocket, selected a contact, and said into the phone: "Hey, is it 10%?"
…
Chiyo-ku, Tokyo, Noro Yakitori Shop.
The original meaning of [ねぎま] is a cooking method of barbecued meat skewers. Take fresh chicken breasts or chicken legs and thread them with bamboo skewers, with green onions or flattened garlic in the middle, and slowly heat them over charcoal fire.
The fat will slowly seep out from under the chicken skin during the grilling process. The aroma of the fat will be mixed with the taste of the green onion and garlic. It is sweet but not greasy. It is an essential dish in Japanese cuisine. .
This restaurant, called [ねぎま], is not one of those expensive Michelin-starred Japanese restaurants.
On the contrary, it has the smell of a fly restaurant hidden in the Sei Fireworks Room. In addition to providing a variety of grilled skewers, it also offers Oden and filling miso ramen.
"Sakai-kun, you still have a good appetite." The chef, who was wearing a long white gown with a strap like a bathrobe, placed three skewers of grilled beef on a black dinner plate in front of Uncle Sakai and said with a smile.
"oh!"
The plump and plump Professor Kazunari Sakai put a skewer into his mouth, slurped it, his throat rolled comfortably, and the whole skewer disappeared.
He took a sip of the sake in the cup and was as happy as a 230-pound fat man.
"Master Otani is still very good at his craftsmanship. The meat is fragrant and tasty!"
Kazunari Sakai gave a thumbs up and casually wiped the shiny grease from the corner of his mouth, without the style of an elegant artist.
In fact, Chef Otani's barbecue skills can only be called proficient.
It is incomparable to those large chain barbecue restaurants, not to mention the high-end kaiseki cuisine and the carefully cooked barbecue steaks in Michelin restaurants. From the raw materials to the production process, this small shop can beat it.
Maybe the only advantage is that it's cheap.
A skewer of chicken skin roasted bird costs 70 yen, a chicken breast roasted bird costs 90 yen, and a beef roasted bird costs 110 yen. If you don’t mind eating grilled chicken butt, a skewer only costs 50 yen, and even poor students in Tokyo eat it. from.
Among the three volumes of East Asian Immortal Cultivation,
It is said that people in Eastern Xia do not take vacations, Koreans do not sleep, and Japanese people do not eat.
The reason why Japanese people don’t eat is partly because Japanese food is too expensive.
Living in Tokyo is not easy.
This is a very prosperous place, and the cost of living is also very high. It is normal to spend 6,000 to 7,000 yen just to eat something good.
Unlike his peers, Uncle Sakai likes anime, baseball, and idol stars.
His biggest hobby is eating.
When he was a young student, he worked as a part-time training coach for a private high school painting club every Friday. After class, he would drive to this small shop with only a dozen square meters.
While looking at the accounts in my notebook, I continued to calculate how much money was left before I could get enough tuition for studying abroad, while eating a few skewers of barbecue to relax.
Even if it takes a long time to eat even two skewers of beef and roasted birds, this is the happiest time he has ever had.
Nowadays, Professor Sakai has long been prosperous. He can buy this small shop ten times for any painting he sells. His wallet is enough for him to eat truffles as potatoes and foie gras as pork liver, but he still likes the atmosphere of this shop.
Especially when my wife is not at home and no one is monitoring my weight.
Uncle Sakai often wanders over for late-night snacks.
This place has the smell in his memory,
In this small shop, he is not a great artist with a net worth of hundreds of millions of people who admire him. He is still the "Sakai-kun" with a good appetite that Master Otani calls him.
Even though classmate "Sakai-kun" has changed from a melancholy handsome man as thin as a bamboo pole to a plump, round and cheerful meat ball, he is still very relaxed.
The only person who was out of place in this small restaurant was the young man in a suit and ties next to Professor Kazunari Sakai.
He has a pale complexion, a gold Vacheron Constantin watch on his wrist, and his blond hair is smooth enough with hair wax to make a fly split.
"Professor Sakai, please, please consider Mas Gallery. One or two oil paintings of 50*60 or larger size can be delivered quarterly every month. Each work will cost US$500,000. It will be given to you within four years. The Zurich Museum of Fine Arts will hold a special solo exhibition, and Ma Shi Gallery is also willing to provide a signing fee totaling 8 million US dollars, so that the total price of the four-year contract can reach the range of 50 million US dollars."
The young man quietly promoted the gallery behind him to the big artists around him. With just a touch of his upper and lower lips, he could see contracts worth millions of dollars, as if they were not dollars but waste paper.
Hanks Mash is a hunter dealer at Mash Gallery.
If the astronomical transaction prices at auctions are fireworks that explode in an instant, then the selling prices of artists' works in primary markets such as galleries are a strong beacon in the hearts of investors.
Hype, bubbles, financial speculation, there are too many things that can affect transaction prices in the ever-changing auction market, but prices in galleries can maintain long-term basic stability.
In order to maintain the healthy development of the market and attract the interest of big collectors.
An unwritten rule of the industry is that
Works by represented artists shown in top galleries will sell for slightly less than their future market valuation of the artist.
For a long time, works sold by large galleries such as Gagosian and Lisson often cost millions of dollars, but collectors usually made a profit after buying them and holding them for a few years.
This is a pattern where the left foot steps on the right foot and ascends to the sky in a cycle.
The appreciation of the works of outstanding agent painters increases the reputation of the gallery, and the improvement of the reputation of the gallery gives collectors purchasing confidence.
Behind almost any great artist, there is a giant gallery.
Giant galleries are like football teams, and excellent painters complement each other.
They can make huge sums of money from the talents and reputations of the artists, and if the market prices collapse, it is the galleries behind them that are willing to spend money to save the artists.
The most classic case in the art market is Damien Hirst, who was briefly crowned the most valuable painter in the world.
Hearst encountered market fluctuations at the turn of the millennium. The auction market was cold and transaction prices plummeted.
Rumor has it that it was the buyers under Larry Gagosian, the founder of Gagosian Gallery, who rushed in with hundreds of millions of dollars in cash flow to stabilize the market.
Picasso, Andy Warhol, Mondrian, Damien Hirst...
Nowadays, any artist who is represented by such a giant gallery will really fail if he can only sell tens of millions of dollars in art transactions in his life.
Anna Weyant, a beautiful Canadian painter, was worth more than 100 times in an instant just because of paparazzi rumors about her affair with Larry Gagosian.
It is common sense that every art student knows that it is not so much the artists but the galleries behind them that can determine the trends and directions of the art market.
Ma Shi Gallery is such a gallery giant, or in other words, it used to be such a gallery giant.
This used to refer to before the 1970s.
The big galleries are not magicians. They may be able to sell brass into gold and gold into diamonds, but they can't sell shit at gold prices.
Collectors are not fools either.
If you want to sell it for a sky-high price, the painter himself must have at least a piece of gold.
There must be famous actors in operas, starring roles in movies, and galleries must have leading artists who can make people take advantage of them.
If you want to become a giant, it is not enough just to have money. You must also have art masters and works that are familiar to collectors.
Similar to Damian Hirst, Andy Warhol to Gagosian, Yayoi Kusama to OFA, and John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono to Lisson Gallery.
Ma Shi Gallery belongs to the old school gallery.
Founded in 1943 in the smoke of World War II, it was once ranked among the top three in the industry. However, it missed the pop wave in the 1970s and gave up the opportunity to sign and represent Andy Warhol at the last moment. There were no artists of sufficient importance anymore. "Town the place".
Several painters were promoted but were not very successful. The investment confidence of the collecting families who had good relations with Mashi Gallery in the past was greatly affected.
Ma Shi Gallery has also fallen from the giant gallery in the past to the bottom of the first-tier galleries, and has begun to continue to develop like a second-tier gallery.
The Ma Shi family urgently needs to create an artist who is successful enough, or even great, to restore its past glory, and no expense is spared for this.
(End of chapter)
