"Hell on earth? What is hell on earth? It’s hell dressed in human skin, devils painted with human faces. Even under the dazzling sunlight, demons roam at night. A commonly used thod by local kidnapping gangs at that ti was using free tours or high-paying job offers as bait. Once they tricked people into Myanmar, they sold them off like livestock and turned them into Chong Ghosts. Brother Hao frequently used thods like offering free als and high pay as bait, only to sell your soul and turn people into his Cheng Ghosts... I’m grateful that, at a very young age, my grandfather taught the principles of being a person."
——"New Yorker: Gu Weijing Interview"
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Gu Tongxiang carefully counted the money in his hand, repeating the process three tis, as if counting to five was an arduous task.
"Rember, this money isn’t for you. It’s for Gu’s Painting and Calligraphy Gallery."
The old man took out an artwork sales agreent and ticulously filled in each section. The seller and buyer sections both had his own na written, and finally, he allocated the money into the gallery’s account.
Gu Weijing watched eagerly as those five green Franklins disappeared into the safe.
"Don’t worry, your share will be transferred to your school account after deducting the gallery’s commission and paying taxes," the old man said, as he handled the accounts with ticulous care.
"Is that necessary?"
Gu Weijing found it odd; for a proper art acquisition, formal procedures couldn’t be skipped.
But this left-hand-to-right-hand maneuver by his grandfather was very peculiar.
The transaction of artworks enjoys the sa luxury goods tax and won’t be cheaper just because you’re not famous.
Even the tax on five hundred dollars is still tax, right?
"Both my father and grandfather were trained in fine brush painting. At that ti, Yangon was still a British colony, and Eastern artworks didn’t fetch good prices. So, I was the first in our family to learn Western painting techniques. I sold my first sketch at the age of ten for fifteen dollars."
"It was also at this painting and calligraphy shop. I still rember my father, your great-grandfather, pulling out that fifteen dollars from under the floorboards of the back room."
Old man Gu Tongxiang pointed towards the back: "My first reaction wasn’t excitent, but fear. At that ti, Myanmar was in chaos, the war seed never-ending. The shop couldn’t continue operating, sotis we couldn’t even afford food. I had never seen that much money before. In Yangon back then, five dollars was enough to get soone killed."
"Your great-grandfather told that this was the first painting I sold in my life. He was investing in art. Not just in this painting, but in . He believed I wasn’t any lower than the blond-haired, blue-eyed white n; I was stronger than all of them. When our ancestors of the Gu Family picked up a paintbrush, those Westerners were still playing with mud. One day my paintings would truly sell for the grand price of 15 dollars."
In the traditional Western fine arts industry, so prejudiced people perceive Asian artworks as having an inherent disadvantage in the market.
After all, the field of art claims to be the last fig leaf of the great powers. Even if our economy is failing, our national strength is declining, and industry is grinding to a halt, I understand art, and that makes great.
Since the nineteenth century.
The fallen nobility of Europe gradually faded away. Notably, those like the Conde family, illustrious descendants of the Bourbon lineage, with the last Prince hanging himself in what used to be a grand ho.
The vast ancestral houses have fallen into ruin due to lack of funds for maintenance. The gold and jewels have been pawned away, or as described in Tolstoy’s novels, everything was lost overnight at the gambling table. Often, they hang a couple of oil paintings in the living room to reminisce about ancestral glory.
Is it tradition or glory, or simply a love of art?
No.
Most importantly, it allows those no longer dignified to reveal so semblance of dignity in past mories.
When they invite blond girlfriends from bars for dinner dates at ho, they can look at the paintings on the wall and say, "Look, my great-grandfather sponsored so famous artist back then. Benjamin even attended his salon."
Or lightly sigh, "You know, my great-grandmother graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts! This oil painting was done when so king paid a visit."
Even if they have achieved nothing significant thus far in life.
Living frivolously, in idleness, wasting their lives, bearing a title like Sir or Lord, yet those portraits on the walls seem to underscore their so-called ’uniqueness.’
A void and unjustified self-satisfaction.
An alcoholic near his demise, still drinks to his heart’s content in the mories of his ancestors.
A dream of fantasy.
They use these artworks to lure their female companions into a drunken reverie, never waking from the long night, much like their ancestors once turned pretty girls of the bourgeoisie into entertainnt for gentlen.
Everything in the world is related to sex, except for sex itself, which is only related to power.
This is a famous quote from Wilde.
It carries Wilde’s unique biting wit filled with irony; if this statent holds true, then art—it is certainly a form of power.
Both an aesthetic power.
And a power of discourse.
Gu Tongxiang leaned on the sofa in a daze, his tone sowhat disoriented: "At last year’s international art biennale exhibition in Myanmar, one of my 80×60 sketches was sold, not for fifteen dollars, nor for fifty dollars, but for five hundred dollars. If your great-grandfather could witness that scene, even accounting for inflation, he wouldn’t be too disappointed."
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