Hanks paused for a moment under the plaque of Gu's calligraphy and painting shop.
The yard wall has begun to be mottled and weathered. Looking inside through the glass shop door and windows, at first glance, it seems that the decoration is normal.
But after looking at it for a moment, I realized that it was nothing more than an ordinary street cafe.
A small door, a small house, a small gallery, nothing more than that.
"Well, that should be it."
The translator opened the store door for him, and Hanks pouted.
He wanted to see the depth of this family who could raise Gu Weijing, so he walked into the calligraphy and painting shop. He did not rush to find the owner to explain his purpose, but just wandered around the shop like a normal buyer. For a while.
The calligraphy and painting shop is not very big.
It covers an area of about two hundred square meters and is divided into exhibition areas of different styles by two or three white exhibition walls.
Hanks walked and walked, most of the works passing by like fleeting glimpses, and occasionally he only looked at a certain painting for a moment.
It took about a quarter of an hour,
He went through most of the collection in the store.
"Gu Tongxiang should be Gu Weijing's grandfather and guardian."
Hanks checked the information in his mind, stopped at a meticulous flower-and-bird painting, took away the price tag and number plate next to the frame, and walked to the counter at the door along with the two number plates he randomly picked just now. Passed it over.
It’s neither a surprise nor a disappointment.
Hanks didn't quite believe that such a painting level could train a young talent like Gu Weijing.
The factors that make you an art master are often equal parts talent and environment.
He didn't see the environment that matched his imagination.
Then explain,
Gu Weijing's ability to draw to his current level is most likely due to his amazing talent for painting.
"Actually, this old gentleman isn't that bad at all."
In Hanks' eyes, Gu Tongxiang's painting skills are far from that of a reclusive master living in the countryside with no talent, but the painting quality of some of the works here is quite good. Compared with the one shown to him by Professor Sakai, he Sun Tzu Gu Weijing's fusion brush and ink are as accurate as the others.
Carry it out alone,
He is probably at the average level of a professional painter, better than the low-level agent painters in some small community galleries in Europe. He probably also worked hard when he was young.
Considering that I came from a war-torn place like Myanmar, it was especially difficult.
If I had the opportunity to go to France, Germany or Eastern Xia to work hard in my early years, I might be able to write my own story.
Regrettably,
The turbulent art environment ended this possibility.
When a family is poor and everything is sad, so is the country.
Genius is lost in the smoke. This is the tragedy of poor places. If not for the appreciation of Professor Kazunari Sakai, that guy Gu Weijing might have repeated this cycle.
Thinking about it this way,
Hanks feels that he is really a good person who helps people in need.
"The total amount is 2.56 million kyats. Can I pay in cash? If I pay in US dollars or euros, I can get a 20% discount. We also accept RMB and Japanese yen."
The middle-aged woman behind the cashier hadn't seen such a generous customer for a long time, and she happily entered the number plate into the computer.
"Visa credit card is fine. By the way, I would like to ask, is there Gu Weijing here? Are Mr. Gu's works for sale?"
Hanks asked pretending to be casual.
"who?"
The middle-aged cabinet girl raised her head, thinking she heard wrongly.
"Gu Weijing."
Hanks repeated word for word, "I saw an empty display frame over there with a name tag on it that said [Colored Pencil Drawing (11×15 inches)]. Was it bought by someone?"
It is said that the children of poor people become rich early.
This Gu Weijing showed such an outstanding style of pen and ink at a young age, and his family opened a small gallery of their own.
Hanks didn't want to know that the donkey he cherished had been grinding away at a young age and had sold hundreds of cheap paintings.
if that is the case,
He may also want to consider whether he can buy it back and destroy it, otherwise it will be a big trouble in the future when he becomes famous.
He also hopes to turn the rough jade with such a good foundation into a high-quality painter who can take the classical and high-end route in the future!
A fine painter is like a cold beauty. The output does not have to be high, but the output must be refined.
Some winners of the Turner Prize and the International Watercolor Award, like Deborah Walker, paint three or four paintings a year, and each painting can be sold for a high price. Collectors are chasing after her, and they are very aloof.
In the industry, selling cheap paintings when you are a minor will not be frowned upon.
But if collectors knew that the cold beauty they were after was like a printing press, they sold a lot of works.
There will also be some disillusionment of a beautiful woman who is living in the world.
but……
"Five hundred dollars a piece, including a colored pencil drawing with more than ten inches of drawing paper, is not a low price. Can it be sold?"
he wondered.
"Pfft."
The middle-aged woman behind the checkout counter laughed out loud, her tone quite disdainful.
"The old man's heart is biased. He's trying to find a way to give pocket money to his precious grandson. Five hundred dollars, huh, five hundred dollars, he can match it, give it to him, let's just give this kid the whole family, his grandson He is a great artist, but his granddaughter is just the mud on the roadside..."
The aunt who was looking after the calligraphy and painting shop felt unhappy when she thought of the five hundred dollars that the old man had remitted to his grandson during the accounting.
These days, I often hear in my husband's ears that those in his family named Gu are sorry for the mother and daughter.
Like a machine gun, my aunt expressed a lot of dissatisfaction with her grandfather and grandson. Even the business translator on the side couldn't keep up with the full-fire menopausal woman's speaking speed.
Auntie was satisfied with her nagging, and then she remembered that there was a customer next to her who had just spent a thousand to several hundred dollars to buy a painting.
"That Gu Weijing is my nephew. He is still a high school student and can't draw anything good. If you want to make an appointment, you can ask our old man. He is a member of the Yangon Calligraphy and Painting Association..."
"Well, this family atmosphere is not very good."
Hanks nodded in judgment in his mind.
Coming from a family environment full of rifts, this background gives him the temperament of an artist.
It is one of the common openings of great painters.
Hanks lowered his stakes a bit, feeling that the $40,000 annual creative allowance he had envisioned was a bit too high.
pity,
Gu Weijing's guardian was not the middle-aged philistine woman full of resentment from her mother-in-law.
He is almost eighteen years old and has almost full capacity for civil conduct legally.
When signing a contract at this age, you must obtain your opinion.
Otherwise, Hanks is sure to buy the contract from the other party for a few thousand dollars in benefits. Then as the savior, he took Gu Weijing away from his native family and went to a broader sky, receiving both benefits and favors.
It feels so good, okay?
"Madam, I hope to meet Mr. Gu Tongxiang. This is my business card. I have something very important to discuss with him. It's about Gu Weijing."
Hanks handed over a business card.
The aunt frowned and took the card. Her English was average, but she still recognized the words on the card——
"Manac'h Gallery?"
In the study room on the second floor,
Mr. Gu Tongxiang, who was boredly reading an old Hong Kong martial arts book with yellowing corners, turned his head, looked through his reading glasses and landed on the business card in his hand.
He has never seen a business card with such a sense of design. The two sides in the lower left corner of the business card are straight lines, and the two sides in the upper right corner are curves with different curvatures.
The four sides form an asymmetrical figure that looks like a rectangle, an arc, or a fan.
It doesn’t look too rustic with gold or silver, and it can be remembered at a glance. The design is very clever.
"Manac'h Gallery, Manac'h Gallery, Manac'h Gallery? This card is printed in a flashy way, and there is no address on it."
Beside the desk,
The aunt glanced at the business card that she thought was flashy in the hand of Mr. Gu Tongxiang, and said in a somewhat wary tone: "Dad, this guy can't be here to check out the new gallery that opened in Yangon? No wonder he is here today." I bought so many paintings for our family, but it turned out that the weasel was paying New Year greetings to the chicken, so I had no good intentions!"
"Manac'h Gallery, this name sounds a little familiar to me."
Gu Tongxiang stroked his beard.
He vaguely felt that he had heard this name somewhere.
But for a moment, he couldn't remember it.
"Did the other party say why he came?"
"He's looking for advice." The aunt raised her eyebrows, "This kid is really restless. He just offended Brother Hao some time ago, and this kind of person comes to him again during this time. Just spoil him!"
Gu Tongxiang waved his hand, interrupting his daughter-in-law's verbosity.
The old man's hand suddenly shook.
"You said... you came to see Gu Weijing, Manac'h Gallery, this seems to be the Ma Shi Gallery!" Gu Tongxiang finally remembered the name.
The old man's Adam's apple squirmed and he swallowed hard.
The reason why Gu Tongxiang, who has been running a calligraphy and painting shop for half his life, did not immediately connect Manac'h Gallery with Ma Shi Gallery.
Mainly because the name is too far away from their family's small business.
The small traders who open grain stores at the port will not care about or even heard of Glencore, a super commodity foreign trade empire ranked second only to ICBC and Shell Oil among the world's top 500 companies.
Every industry is a towering tree.
Gu's Book Gallery is a small business with roots in the mud. The Komatsu Gallery of the Komatsu Family is like the solid trunk of a big tree, while the Giant Gallery is floating in the clouds, calling for wind and rain in the entire field and nourishing the earth.
Although Ma Shi Gallery has experienced an obvious decline in recent years, and has the tendency to fall from the clouds to the tree canopy again, it is not something that Gu's Book Gallery can look up to and cling to.
With the pride of a top gallery.
People even look down upon the entire Myanmar painting and calligraphy industry. If they really wanted to set up an art and creative park or something in Yangon, they would not acquire a gallery like theirs that looks like a small grocery store.
So……
"The business card says agent Hanks Marsh. Looking for my grandson Gu Weijing?" The old man had already thought of a possibility. His heart was beating fast, but he didn't dare to have high hopes and then be disappointed later. .
"You call immediately, no, you go and ask someone to come up. I'm going to change clothes now."
Old Man Gu glanced at the baggy cultural shirt he was wearing, ordered his daughter-in-law, and rushed to the bedroom.
…
"Mr. Gu Tongxiang, I have long admired you. Hello."
Hanks held Mr. Gu's hand. This sentence was not in English or Burmese, but entirely in Chinese, and the accent was really straight, without the weird accents common to foreigners.
He learned from Professor Sakai that the family were all of Chinese descent.
These days, if you have money, you will be rich.
The most enthusiastic art market is Asia, and the transaction volume of Dongxia is one of the best every year. Regardless of which Middle Eastern princes are there all day long, oil tycoons will spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the trading market to buy paintings.
Many of these are due to the Gulf countries' high-profile foreign policy of showing off their wealth and displaying their image to the outside world. It is really more than the hot money flowing in the entire market. Famous wealthy countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar combined can't compare. A Dongxia market.
Hanks had someone teach him a few words of Chinese.
Not only can he speak Mandarin, he can also say auspicious words such as "Gong Xi Fa Cai" and "Guang Guang Jin" in Cantonese.
Agents are also in the service industry. They make the bosses happy so that they can pay for the artists they represent, right?
"I don't know...this is what you are doing."
Gu Tongxiang felt flattered.
He hesitated for a moment, then asked his inner guess. "Does Mashi Gallery want to buy the works of my grandson? What an honor."
“That’s not a bad thing to say, but we don’t buy works.”
Hanks shook his head and looked directly into Gu Tongxiang's eyes: "I flew to Yangon this time, hoping to sign Mr. Gu Weijing specifically."
Ding!
The words hit my ears.
Mr. Gu's chair made a squeaking sound.
The old man could still maintain his composure on the surface thanks to his many years of hard work on the streets, but suddenly, an unconcealable wetness welled up in the corners of his eyes.
At this moment, Gu Tongxiang still didn't understand how the Tangtang Mashi Gallery found a small family like theirs.
He no longer cares so much,
The old man's mood and thoughts were ups and downs at this time, and a warm warmth surged from his heart to his eyes, and then radiated from every pore.
Probably only those parents in Eastern Xia who hope that their children and grandchildren will become dragons and phoenixes can understand a bit of Gu Tongxiang's ecstatic and overwhelmed feeling at this moment when they received a call from the Qingbei Admissions Office.
Mas Gallery!
This name kept echoing in Gu Tongxiang's heart.
It’s fucking Mashi Gallery!
Mashi Gallery was once as famous as Gagosian!
Everyone who has ever held a paintbrush has not had the dream of reaching the peak of art, signing a contract with a top gallery, and opening his own solo exhibition in art galleries around the world?
When he was young, Gu Tongxiang had imagined such a scene in his dream.
It's just that dreams are just dreams after all. When he was a teenager, Gu Tongxiang knew that such a dream did not belong to him, nor did it belong to this environment.
My talent is not bad, but no matter how good my painting is, those high-minded art critics will not focus on the previous moment.
The ceiling is almost sealed.
Moving a small bench to the overpass to paint is his professional future and his destiny.
Later, when he got married and started a business, and had some money on his hands, Mr. Gu Tongxiang no longer even dreamed of such a dream.
In fact, when he was working on oil painting, he had the opportunity to go to developed cities in Asia with foreign investors.
Mr. Gu Tongxiang himself still refused.
He is the backbone of the family, and he has gone to pursue his dreams. What will happen to the orphans and widowers in his own family?
The older you get, the less you care about yourself and the more you care about your children and grandchildren.
Gu Tongxiang looks forward to the day and night that his grandson can join those large intercontinental galleries and become a true master.
In the past few months,
Although his grandson's performance became more and more outstanding, he gradually felt that he might actually see such a scene in his lifetime.
But when the agent of Ma Shi Gallery was sitting in front of Mr. Gu, he still couldn't help but have the urge to cry.
The old man lowered his head, pretending to drink tea from a teacup, and casually wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes with his fingertips.
"Huh huh huh, that's right. I like the way the old man looks so grateful that his eyes are filled with tears." Hanks was very satisfied with Gu Tongxiang's reaction.
It would be easier to talk to an insider who knows the status of Mashi Gallery. This signing should be easy.
"Gu Weijing...he is not at home now. I called him to ask him to come back."
"It's okay, we can talk first." Hanks was not particularly anxious.
Gu Weijing was not yet an adult. He had arranged for his guardian, and it was just a matter of signing the child's name when he came back.
"Uh, just to ask, considering my grandson's age, are you officially acting as his agent, or..." Gu Tongxiang's mood had calmed down and he asked a little uncertainly.
"We at Ma Shi Gallery come here with full sincerity. We are not like some colleagues who engage in tricks. Naturally, it is a formal contract."
Some large galleries will establish their own creative parks for young artists and organize their own art competitions.
Through these methods, we can cast a wide net to contact, train, and observe many talented candidates.
Only a few very outstanding people can get formal contracts.
Many candidates can be observed for three, four or even five years from the initial contact to the gallery deciding whether to officially represent them.
Before that,
Their names will not be listed in the list of represented artists on the official website or Wikipedia homepage to prevent the gallery’s sign from being damaged.
Strictly speaking,
Sakai Katsuko is not currently an officially represented painter by Tokyo Gallery.
Regarding this question, Hanks did not hesitate much and simply said: "If everything goes well with the signing, Gu Weijing will be the 302nd official artist represented by Ma Shi Gallery since its establishment, and will be the same as countless bright names in the history of art. , to become a glorious Ma Shi man."
The gallery has represented a total of 300 painters since World War II.
Among them, nearly 200 have been signed in the past ten years. Hanks doesn’t care about signing one more person to the gallery, as it can also show his importance.
"Well, if my nephew is signed away, how much money can he give us per month?" Auntie couldn't hold back at this time and asked while stretching her neck.
My aunt is an accountant and doesn’t know much about Mashi Gallery. As she listened, she roughly understood that this gallery seemed to be quite powerful.
"Mashi will give its artists a certain allowance. The custom is to give a check for the next year's allowance every Christmas, but if you want, you can also make payments on a monthly basis."
Hanks thought for a moment and held out a finger.
"When I came on this trip, I specifically applied for a creative subsidy, which can give me US$10,000 a year."
Auntie was stunned.
"He is still a student? If he paints for you, you will give him ten thousand dollars... every year! Are you not a liar?"
The middle-aged woman grinned in complete disbelief.
The US dollar has a very strong purchasing power in Yangon. Two US dollars a day can cover the living expenses of ordinary people.
The consumption level in Myanmar is equivalent to that of the country in the late 1980s, and there are many working class people who cannot earn more than five dollars a day.
An annual income of US$10,000, or pure foreign exchange, is already at the level of a middle-level manager of a local multinational foreign company.
It is seven to ten times more than GDP per capita.
During the epidemic, when business was hard, their family might not be able to save US$10,000 a year.
Now someone rushed up to her, taking money equivalent to the annual profit of the entire calligraphy and painting shop to sign her nephew who was still in school.
Auntie thinks the world is crazy.
Hanks smiled.
He liked this middle-aged aunt's petty look very much.
The landlord's family doesn't have any food left.
Ma Shi Gallery can generate tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year, but that does not mean that tens of thousands of dollars are not important.
The flowers should be spent, the province should be saved.
It’s not just about money. Gallery owners actually don’t like their artists to be too wealthy. Otherwise they will become lazy.
In Hanks' eyes,
The most ideal creative environment for an artist is that his parents are in the ICU, his children are in private schools, and he has three divorced ex-wives who are asking for living expenses every month.
So they had no choice but to lock themselves in a small dark room, drink cold water, eat dry food, and paint furiously with a paintbrush in their mouth.
want money,
Trade your talent for it!
Without financial pressure whipping behind them like a whip, people in the literary and art circles who are not short of money have little motivation to grind.
When people like Balzac, Flaubert, and Picasso got rich, they went out to whore and gamble, and leisurely hooked up with young rich women. Only when they were deeply in debt did they obediently work hard to write books and paintings.
The reason why Balzac was so prolific, and the stories behind the large number of works he created in his life, were all written in his apartment because he owed money and was blocked by publishers and even the underworld who were lending money.
In the art industry, galleries pay salaries and subsidies to painters to prevent them from starving to death on the streets. This is a fashionable concept that only emerged in the last century or so.
The rich French young man, Paul Durandrue, is known as the founder of modern galleries. It was because he felt that the lives of the suppressed Impressionist painters were so miserable that he could not wait to go hungry for nine meals in three days, so he became kind. Pay regular payments to painters to maintain their creative status.
before that,
If you don't work hard at painting and can't sell your works as a painter, you deserve to starve to death.
During the Renaissance, so many painters spent several months without sleep, spending dozens or hundreds of square meters on church dome paintings. The reason behind this was not because they were pious, but because of one word: poverty.
(End of chapter)
