To put it bluntly,
The moment Hanks saw the picture pushed by Professor Sakai, the picture did not meet his expectations after hearing the name "Wu Guanzhong".
It can even be said that he felt quite disappointed.
Just like when the company boss announces a dinner treat, you thought it was a three-star Michelin set meal, only to find out when you arrived that it suddenly turned into a KFC hamburger.
It’s not that it’s inedible, it doesn’t even taste bad.
It's just that the gap between it and what Hanks hopes to see is indeed a bit big.
What Ma Shi Gallery needs is a miracle, a trend-setter that attracts the world's high-end art trends, the next Andy Warhol or Picasso.
If someone could create an art genre that shocked the world like pop art, then the big boss Mas III would really be willing to kneel down and kiss the artist’s ass without hesitation.
Even with Professor Kazunari Sakai’s current artistic status and illustrious reputation, the probability of achieving this goal is less than 10%.
to be honest,
Mashi Gallery sent Hanks here because they hoped to spend tens of millions of dollars in contract signing costs and tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing costs to achieve a miracle with a success rate of less than one tenth.
Of course, old-school great painters like Kazunari Sakai are not like those avant-garde artists who are completely building cities on floating sand and playing with various concepts.
His exquisite painting techniques serve as a solid foundation for the value of his works.
In the past five years, the prices of Kazunari Sakai’s art works have been showing a steady to upward trend, and collectors are very confident.
As long as Uncle Sakai doesn't work as hard as Kanye, it's unlikely that the price of his works will suddenly collapse and hit him.
By signing Sakai Kazunari, Mashi Gallery will most likely not lose money.
Master Sakai suggested that Hanks change his goal. The work in front of him was far inferior to Professor Kazunari Sakai’s paintings.
Not even a replacement.
"Who painted it? Do you have any inside information?"
Hanks blinked, smiled helplessly and said: "If you can give me a name as famous as Taylor Swift, then Ma Shi Gallery will be happy to cooperate with her."
Hanks was joking and not joking.
Art speculation is either about the work or about the speculator.
Works are not good. If the creator himself has articles that can be mined, he can still sell them at a reasonable price.
For example, it is the work of a celebrity politician, a student of Picasso, or a student of Leonardo da Vinci's student with accurate documentation.
Anyway, if there is a selling point that can hit collectors, the price will be high.
Paintings of German mustaches are relatively sensitive, but they are always bought by people. Paintings of famous people like Churchill may have special sales every few years, and there are quite a lot of them in the art market.
The Lisson Gallery in France started out by cooperating with rock star John Lennon and selling the art of his wife Yoko Ono.
The business direction of Ma Shi Gallery does not involve the works of fashion stars, but it will not refuse such opportunities.
"For a star, this painting is a bit too good, isn't it? Amateur painters don't have this skill."
Faced with Hanks' obvious disappointment, Professor Sakai still downplayed the situation.
"But if it is the work of a mature professional painter, this painting is obviously... not bad, just not good enough." Hanks told the truth, "This painting does not have the value to make the audience crazy, nor does it make the horse crazy. The reason why Shi Gallery has to sign it.”
What is the specific value of a piece of art?
Outsiders who are not engaged in the art industry and have no contact with art investment-related fields often cannot understand or even find it unreasonable.
The works created by Leonardo da Vinci, Monet, Picasso, and Mondrian can sell for sky-high prices and people easily accept them because they are indeed good paintings.
The audience can easily feel the intense emotions and outstanding techniques in the picture.
But why can Duchamp be credited with creating the greatest work of art of the century if he sent a urinal to a painting exhibition?
Why can Dadaist artists sell hundreds of thousands of pounds for just dots on white paper, and why is it even grandly displayed by the National Gallery of the Netherlands in a pavilion next to Van Gogh's works?
Even now, in 2021, one pixel of NFT digital art has been sold for tens of millions of dollars. Some people use tin cans to hold poop, and collectors are rushing to buy it?
The reason for this is definitely not that Duchamp's urinal has any special function for peeing, or that the dots he points on the paper are extraordinarily round.
In the eyes of professionals in the gallery industry, these artworks cannot be considered in the same category at all.
Even if they are both called works of art, the differences between them are huge.
There is a very simple and direct standard in the industry for judging the value of artworks - classical art emphasizes technique, modern art emphasizes form, and avant-garde art emphasizes concept.
Classical art does not specifically refer to the two art philosophies of classicism and neoclassicism, but generally refers to the works of all painters who pursue artistic techniques.
It is the traditional painting art work in the impression of ordinary people.
They strive to impress the audience with the beauty of the work itself.
Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Aestheticism, Realism, Symbolism...all art schools before the 20th century, including traditional Chinese painting, are included in this category.
The most significant difference between classical art, modern art and avant-garde art is whether the “focus” of appreciation is on the work itself.
"From a traditional perspective of appreciating classical works of art, and judging from the photos, I think this painting itself may not be qualified enough to be called a master in your words."
Hanks enlarged the photo, looked at it inch by inch with a hawk-like gaze, and said: "From what I can see, I can't see any flowers that can be interpreted in terms of artistic concepts."
In traditional painting, all the value is reflected in the canvas and paper.
Good technique is better than poor technique, and works with rich emotions are more valuable than paintings with pale and empty emotions.
When people appreciate paintings, they are appreciating the brushwork and skills that the painter has devoted to his works.
That's why it's expensive.
However, in modern and avant-garde art schools, more emphasis has shifted to interpretation beyond the works.
For example, Duchamp named the urinal "Fountain", which was a satire on Ingres's famous painting of a nude woman, "Fountain".
"Why is it that the naked body of a beautiful girl is art, but my urinal is not art!"
He hopes to trigger the audience's thinking that art does not need to be limited to perfect brushwork and advanced techniques, and that everyone can be an artist.
The focus is on society's thinking about aesthetic concepts, not the urinal.
Like shit in a tin can, the value lies in the "ruthless critique of consumerism" that critics can interpret from it rather than the shit in the can.
There is no distinction between these two artistic concepts, and both can be sold for sky-high prices at certain times, with hundreds of millions of dollars just being common.
But the former is more stable in price and better able to withstand the test of time.
Excellent techniques and passionate emotions are always as rare and precious as shining gold.
Ever since people began collecting beautiful stones and shells in the Neolithic Age, the urge to collect beautiful objects has been hidden in human genes.
From the moment Ingres' "Fountain" was created, no one needed to interpret it or understand art. Even an illiterate farmer knew that it was a great painting.
No matter in 1856, 1956 or 2156, as long as the human social structure does not change, the extremely high aesthetic value it contains is common and can be sold at a high price.
But shit in a tin can is art when the storm comes, and shit after the storm passes and loses attention.
More simply,
From an investment perspective,
Classical art is like gold, while avant-garde art is like virtual currency that can make people rich overnight. Their risk resistance capabilities are different.
Traditional painters like Uncle Sakai are popular because of their popularity. In the eyes of gallery owners, painters with excellent techniques are always high-quality assets that can increase in value stably.
In Hanks' eyes, the technique of this painting was far inferior.
"So, you don't want to sign this painter?"
Uncle Sakai didn't seem to be in a hurry to promote Gu Weijing and just asked casually.
"It's not that I don't want to sign."
That’s not what Hanks meant.
The painting in front of me also has some shining points.
"This picture is a bit...a bit like Castiglione. This painting style itself is very unique. Based on this alone, Mas Gallery is interested in this painter. His technical level is enough to participate in some small art exhibitions."
Hunter agents are just for appreciating art and judging the quality of artists.
The eyes are very poisonous.
Today, driven by top galleries such as Gagosian, the art industry is much more prosperous than it was in the days of Van Gogh and even Picasso.
The ingredients for artificially high bubbles exist.
But the objective fact is that even after adjusting for inflation, the average price of high-end art products has increased dozens of times in the past half century.
In 1940, buying a Monet painting in Europe cost only the price of a Beetle, which was already very expensive at the time. Nowadays, you may have to hold funds that can be exchanged for half a dozen Rolls-Royces before you can be qualified to consider a great painter like Monet, and his works must be very unpopular.
Tens of billions of dollars of funds are circulating in this field every year, driving many professional hunters and agents like Hanks to search for talented painters with red eyes.
Chollima is rare, but there are more Bole who have sufficient art appreciation ability.
As long as you don't live in a remote place, the chances of being like Van Gogh and not being recognized are much less.
For ordinary works, he could easily understand the artistic genre, composition design, emotional expression, and symbolic metaphors by casually scanning them.
The painting style that fuses the East and West has always been a pearl in the field of art in the past. Castiglione's paintings have a large number of surviving paintings, and they are also considered "Chinese paintings that foreigners can understand."
Hanks knows.
Although the picture is just a rough draft.
He still saw the shadow of Castiglione in the picture, which in itself was a good selling point.
"Again, this painting is not bad, it's just not good enough."
“In the field of classical art, what Mashi Gallery hopes to see is beautiful techniques that are so outstanding that they make people tremble with goosebumps, the kind of truly masterful work.”
Hank scratched his head, looked at Kazunari Sakai on the side and said: "Professor, you understand what I mean. If you were Sophie Marceau, this painting may only be regarded as my cheerleader in school, Xiaojiabiyu. Beautiful, but not charming enough to kill all sentient beings.”
The fat man, who weighed about two and a half times as much as Sophie Marceau, knew that this guy was flattering him, so he still laughed out loud at being licked.
"Indeed, this technique is still a bit green and immature. It still needs time to settle."
"Oh, how can it be so easy to settle down?" Hanks shook his head slightly, expressing that he did not agree with Professor Sakai's point of view: "The art style and technical level of most professional painters are almost finalized. If they can improve early It’s improved.”
"Are you going to sign or not?" Kazunari Sakai asked.
Hanks touched his chin and looked at Uncle Sakai.
The agent suddenly showed a sly smile: "If Mr. Sakai needs Mashi Gallery to sign him, I will be happy to help you."
What he meant was simple.
Mashi Gallery could sign him, but it was for the sake of Professor Sakai, as a favor to Uncle Sakai.
This is also the case.
It is only natural that a stunning beauty like Sophie Marceau should be the heroine, but cheerleaders with pretty features are everywhere, and it is difficult to show up in big productions just by looking good.
If you still want to be a third or fourth female lead with lines, you either have to be an awesome dad or a godfather.
Judging from this photo alone,
Hanks estimates that this painter's painting skills can only be regarded as the middle and lower reaches among the 193 artists represented by Ma Shi Gallery, which is better than some avant-garde painting creators who do not need technical skills in the first place.
It’s the kind of useless thing where you can either sign it or not sign it.
The art style is quite eye-catching.
in summary,
In fact, Hanks wanted to sign it in his heart.
Anyway, works of this level are endorsed by Mashi Gallery. I dare not say that there are many, but if they sell for a few thousand dollars, there will always be someone interested, which can be regarded as filling the low-end market for the urban middle class.
But,
He was not an idiot, he could tell that this guy seemed to have a close personal relationship with Uncle Sakai, and it would be stupid not to do a favor along the way.
Hanks thought it was just a matter of smooth sailing.
Who knew that Professor Kazunari Sakai actually refused.
"No, I can introduce this painter to you, but it's not that I owe you a favor, it's that you owe me a favor."
Uncle Sakai shook his head and said with a serious face: "I am not begging you to sign someone else's contract, you are begging me to sign someone else's contract. Please make this clear."
Then I won’t sign!
Even after these words came to his lips, Hanks still calmed down and did not dare to speak to the artist Professor Sakai in such an aggressive tone.
"Oh...then, I'll think about it when I go back."
He changed his words to more tactful words, but the meaning of rejection was already obvious.
Hanks was very unhappy.
I also have dignity, okay?
Although he is a professional licking dog, the ones he licks are all serious artists.
Hanks flattered Uncle Sakai.
If it were the vast majority of middle-level painters, the other party would lick him cautiously.
No matter how poor Mashi Gallery is, it is still a top first-tier gallery. It is the kind of first-tier gallery that can make outstanding art students from the four major international art academies faint with excitement when receiving a cooperation offer.
It's not shameful to beg to sign Sakai, but what's the point of begging to sign a little painter with no background!
etc?
A possibility suddenly occurred to Hanks.
He raised his head and stared at Uncle Sakai for a few seconds, and the expression on his face suddenly switched to a smile mode again.
And it is more sincere and brilliant.
"Professor Sakai, the cooperation between your lady and the Tokyo Gallery is not going well? If that is the case, Mas Gallery is very, no, extremely interested in collaborating with such a young genius Toshihiko. For a liquidated damages of millions of dollars, we will It's an honor to pay for you."
"She's not even eighteen years old yet. This technique is really amazing."
Hanks' tone was slightly hesitant amid the enthusiasm.
"But I've never heard that Ms. Sakai has ever been involved in the field of Chinese painting?"
If you are interested in paintings, you can take a look at the comparison between Ingres and Duchamp's "Fountain". It should be one of the most important comparisons in modern art. A painting of a girl holding a jar and a urinal. Ingres's "Fountain" cannot be published, so you can check it online. Interpretations of Duchamp's Fountain are everywhere. If you are interested, you can learn more.
(End of chapter)
