"Anna?"
A young woman's carefree voice came from the other end of the phone.
"My good bestie, Xiao Nizi actually remembered to call me so late. By the way, have you received the cheese I sent for my birthday? Our best product, almost no sugar. With ham or made into Cheese fondue is delicious. If you can’t eat it, keep it in the refrigerator. Oh, you should have a separate cellar there..."
Aurora is a bit chatty.
Anna had just said hello and expressed her intention to come, and she heard the other party talking a lot like pouring buckets of water.
People who can study art at the best universities in Austria have good family conditions.
Aurora's family is also very wealthy. Of course, it is certainly not comparable to Elena's family, but it is also as wealthy as a multi-millionaire.
The gallery in Bern was her cousin's property.
Her father has a dairy farm of more than 100 acres under the Alps, which produces Switzerland's famous Emmental cheese.
When I was in school,
Aurora told Anna.
She struggled for a long time in high school before choosing the former between studying art and going to her uncle's gallery, or studying ranch management and going home to make handmade cheese.
"Thank you. I'll give you a thank you card. You should receive it in a few days."
Anna remembered the large, round piece of cheese she received for her birthday, weighing 93 kilograms.
She listened with a gentle smile.
The dormitory building of WYN Academy of Fine Arts is like an independent three- or four-story villa. There is a small independent dormitory assigned to each person, and everyone shares the open kitchen on the first floor.
A dormitory is like a big family.
When she entered school, Miss Elena was slightly younger than the students of the same grade.
Aurora, the dormitory director who has a round face and a slightly chubby face and likes to wear tight jeans and bucket boots like a cowgirl, is three grades higher than Anna. She has the natural enthusiasm of growing up on a ranch under the Alps.
Aurora is one of the few seniors who can make Anna feel like a big sister, and she is a good friend who can be called a best friend during her school days.
This year, the gallery in the other party's home is holding a spring academic seminar, so I was unable to attend Anna's birthday.
"Oh, by the way, you want to know which gallery has the contract. What a strange request. Send me the contract to your email."
Aurora thought of business.
She didn't ask why, she just clicked on the file.
"Let me see, it's not Gagosian's contract, nor is it Pace's template contract..."
Aurora muttered quietly on the phone.
"Can you be more detailed?" Anna raised her tone slightly.
"It's more detailed. Well, it's definitely not our home gallery." Aurora smiled.
"Aurora, I'm serious." Anna was helpless.
"Sister Anna, your request itself is very weird, okay? Contracts are not fingerprint identification, they can only be based on experience. You shouldn't ask me about this. You should post it on Reddit and ask the Sherlock Holmes fan group .”
"I have interned at Gagosian, and I have also handled contracts with Pace, so I can exclude these two companies. It looks very formal and detailed, and it is not modified from a template directly found on Google. However, some small galleries will also hire professional legal counsel. Come to write the contract."
Aurora complained speechlessly on the phone.
"If you really can't find it, forget it."
Anna originally wanted to give it a try.
She promised not to explore the other party's identity, but... she felt itchy.
"Okay, okay. Don't worry, I will help you think carefully. Anna, do you have any other information?" Aurora asked.
"It should be a big gallery, maybe an intercontinental gallery." Anna said.
"The scope is much smaller. Those who can establish their own branch galleries across continents must have a capital of at least US$100 million. I saw the report during my internship. Gagosian has branches in Tokyo, Rome, Paris, and London. The annual operating expenses of each one are more than 20 million US dollars. Those are the only ones in the industry that can truly be called intercontinental galleries."
"We have just excluded Gagosian and PACE. It should not be Perrotin or Alberto. These two galleries are very proud of their Parisian attributes. I heard that even all legal texts are only in French..."
on the phone,
Aurora tinkered with research for a few minutes, and finally concluded: "I think if it is really a large-scale intercontinental gallery, it will most likely be one of the Saatchi Gallery, Mas Gallery, Tokyo Gallery or Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York. Mine The judgment may not be correct, you can also ask other people.”
Anna pulled up the notepad on the computer and wrote down the four names [Saatchi Gallery], [Mashi Gallery], [Tokyo Gallery] and [Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York].
One of these four galleries?
She felt as if she had caught a glimpse of the mystery behind the detective cat sister.
"I just made a small discovery when I was studying the contract. I don't think I broke my promise." Anna comforted herself in her heart.
"Say hello to August for me. That dog of yours is so handsome. Let me rub its head."
Aurora yawned and was about to hang up the phone.
"I'm sleepy. My boyfriend is still waiting for me in bed. Welcome to come and play with me in the summer. You can't ski, but I can teach you how to make cheese on the ranch and let you ride a snowmobile in the back seat. There’s also dog sledding, which is fun.”
"Wait a minute, I have something else to do. Remember Aurora, you went to North America to study law after graduation. You have a lawyer's license, right?"
"Technically, I have a master's degree in law. I studied for a one-year LLM degree, not a three- to five-year JD degree."
After finishing college in Austria, Aurora spent several years in the United States.
Her cousin hopes that after Aurora graduates, she will be able to take charge of administrative affairs in the family gallery. So in addition to interning at Gagosian Gallery, Aurora also completed law courses at New York University.
In North America, professional legal disciplines are often available only at postgraduate level. There are two degrees: LLM and JD. The main difference is that the latter can directly become a practicing lawyer.
"Can I ask you some legal questions?" Anna asked.
"If it's about your huge property that I envy and hate, in line with the attitude of being responsible for both of us, you'd better not ask me. But if it's about this contract, you're right to ask me!"
Aurora said with a smile.
Regular courses such as "Maritime Law" and "Intellectual Property Law" are offered in every law school.
But New York is one of the centers of modern art. It is also the international headquarters of major galleries such as Gagosian and Lehmann Maupin, as well as the location of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the major art temples such as the Vatican, the Louvre, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
High-end art industries gather here.
Therefore, New York University is one of the few universities that offers specialized elective courses in the legal field of "art antique agency, sales and insurance specialization".
This is why Aurora went to study.
"This contract was sent to me by a sister. She wanted to know if it would be okay for her to work part-time outside to provide articles to a publishing company after signing this contract. She felt that the agreement only stipulated that she could not work with others. Other galleries and auction houses work together.”
"Does she really think so?"
Aurora smacked her lips: "This silly girl is really innocent and cute."
"How to say?"
Anna raised her chin slightly.
Senior Aurora's daily job is to handle this aspect of work for the gallery.
Miss Elena trusts the other party's professional judgment.
"Being a gallery owner is exactly the same as herding. When our Simmental cows grow up, their manure is supplied to the organic fertilizer factory. The milk they squeeze out can be used to make fresh milk and cheese. When they get older, they can When meat and milk cattle are supplied to the meat and poultry market, the hides are peeled off and kneaded into furniture, and even the bones are made into beef bone meal to make money.”
Senior Aurora gave out a cold smile belonging to a black-hearted capitalist: "How can there be any reason to let it secretly milk others?"
Anna didn't expect to get such feedback.
She had never studied law, and she was originally worried that Detective Cat would not be able to go to auction houses in the future.
Now, according to the senior sister, there are still pitfalls in this seemingly ordinary contract.
This answer is unexpected and reasonable.
If the twists and turns in a business contract are so easy to understand, why would you need to study law?
The long-term consulting contract signed by the Irina family with the law firm in the past was 150,000 euros per year, and it only handled simple formulaic matters. Professional legal consultation was also billed by the minute.
The legal team charges such a high price.
It couldn't be easier to let others step on a trap without knowing it.
"Isn't it possible?" Anna asked strangely.
"It's very dangerous. It depends on whether the gallery wants to take a piece of flesh from you."
Aurora hummed twice: "For example, you see, the gallery has agreed that during the contract period, it will naturally enjoy all ownership of the works created by its agent painter using the gallery's art resources."
"This contract seems normal, but what does 'using the gallery's art resources' mean?"
"Sorry, Sister Anna, only works drawn with the gallery's paper and pen can be called using the gallery's art resources. For example, our family holds academic seminars for agent artists. After participating, his skills have improved, or new creations have emerged. Inspiration, does this count as utilizing the gallery’s art resources?”
Aurora gave an example casually: "Determining whether to use company resources is complicated. Some people are involved in customs clearance. In the early years of Silicon Valley, many programmers who secretly used company-issued computers to do private work at night and start businesses were on similar terms. It's a terrible death. Art is more complicated."
"...There is also this article. The commercial copyright and adaptation rights of the works created by the artist during the contract period belong to the gallery. If she draws illustrations, this will easily cause disputes with the publisher. And these articles, what should not be created that violates the gallery Social image work balabala…”
Aurora flicked through the contract casually, grabbing a lot of problematic clauses.
"When major artists sign a contract, they hire someone to draft the contract. They never use the template contract prepared by the gallery. They are not bored."
"That's it."
Anna nodded.
It is indeed a very wise choice to ask professionals for Detective Cat.
Otherwise, even Anna herself was not aware of the potential risks of these terms.
"In short, gallery owners should be very careful about their painters. There is no precedent for prosecution in the industry for serious painters to secretly provide manuscripts and illustrations to publishing houses. It is just because it is relatively rare and basically cannot make a lot of money. Galleries I don't want to show my greedy face for the sake of profits of up to tens of thousands of dollars.
"If KAWS comes out, just try it and see if they sue you or not."
"With these terms, winning is not guaranteed. It is not difficult to tear off a few pieces of flesh from her body, and it is not difficult to force an out-of-court settlement."
"What a black heart."
Anna took a sip of coffee and gave her own comments.
"Of course, the gallery industry is all about the money. Do you think anyone like Hirst is qualified to negotiate terms with his own gallery?"
Aurora gave a sly smile like Grandet: "If something like this happens to the painter I signed and no money can be squeezed out of her, I will look down on myself."
"Anyway, sister, I don't like small money, but big money can't escape."
"So how to prevent this from happening?" Anna only cared about this matter.
"It's best to make it clear with the gallery directly... If you think his painting skills are good enough, or simply let her sign to our gallery? I can not take ownership of her illustrations. I believe in your vision, Anna, to sign this kind of painter It’s definitely not a loss.”
Aurora suggested.
Anna smiled.
This is a choice.
She couldn't recommend Detective Cat to Gagosian, but she could still recommend her to Aurora's gallery.
It's just that Aurora's gallery is only one of those urban independent galleries with assets of several million Swiss francs, and the publicity resources it enjoys are not as good as those of the Komatsu Gallery.
If only Ms. Detective Cat could actually sign an intercontinental gallery.
Or does the latter have a bigger stage and better exposure resources.
"If you want to completely construct the identity of an anonymous illustrator and completely prevent the gallery owner from knowing about it, is it possible?" Anna asked.
"Okay, I know Miss Elena doesn't like our poor workshop." Aurora sighed insincerely.
She wasn't curious about the illustrator's request.
After 2010, anonymous illustrators became very popular.
The public likes gimmicks with a sense of mystery.
KAWS is neither his real name nor KAWS. These four letters are the code name he gave himself when he became popular on INS.
And there are so many anonymous illustrators in the blockchain NFT virtual digital collection exchange that they can’t even be counted.
"In this case, I will think of a way for you."
——
Later that night, Gu Weijing received an email from Mr. Sloth in his mailbox.
[Ms. Detective Cat:
Based on your needs, I consulted with professionals.
If you want to separate the virtual identity of "Detective Cat" from the gallery's system of contracting painters, the best way to avoid future troubles is to clearly indicate the following terms in the contract.
"It is hereby stated that before I signed the contract, starting from March 6, 2023, the painting creation network account, virtual IP and surrounding intellectual property rights were all held by me. At the same time, without borrowing the gallery's publicity channels, I will not use the gallery's publicity channels in the future. Anonymous creative works on the Internet, and all commercial activities based on them, have nothing to do with the gallery, and all rights and responsibilities also belong to the artist himself——"
In addition to the terms of this statement, there are also some key points and details that need to be paid attention to when signing a contract. I have sorted it all out for you and put the notes in the Word document in the appendix at the back of the email.
I know this may not be consistent with your desire not to attract additional attention from the gallery.
But sometimes there is no optimal solution to things in life, and we can only choose the most advantageous option according to the situation. To avoid possible trouble in the future, I strongly recommend that you include this clause in your contract.
also,
The 15-year contract period is too long. I suggest that you make concessions on the share and allowances in exchange for a larger contract balance.
A shorter contract means more options, and signing a contract of less than ten years is a suitable choice.
I believe you have a talent that will shock the art world and collectors alike.
The first contract should be just a stepping stone to your career as a detective cat, not a lifelong support. If you talk about a short contract of about three years, even if you only get 10% or even 5% of the share in exchange for the resource tilt of the big gallery, it is not unacceptable.
Good luck with your signing!
Your forever friend, Mr. Sloth]
[——If the negotiation process does not go smoothly, I have a good personal friendship with a city gallery in Switzerland. Although it is not an intercontinental gallery, it should be willing to give you a satisfactory contract. This may be worth considering Plan B. 】
"Sure enough, you can't sign it directly, but Mr. Sloth is more reliable."
Gu Weijing read the email from beginning to end twice, and saw in the attachment that Mr. Sloth reminded him of all the noteworthy aspects of the contract.
He knew that he had taken it for granted.
Gu Weijing took his mobile phone and sent a message of thanks to Mr. Sloth.
"Well, it seems I need to have a good talk with Hanks."
Although it was different from what he had imagined, it would definitely be better to know where the trap was than to go and sign it stupidly.
"Should I make the request directly to the gallery and see if it can agree, or should I discuss it with Mrs. Sakai first?"
Gu Weijing pondered for a moment.
He thought he had a better idea.
There are really big thick legs with hair thicker than my waist, waiting for him to hug her.
In the field of art, my biggest supporter is not Mr. Sloth or Mrs. Sakai but——
Mr. Cao Xuan.
(End of chapter)
