Almighty painter

Chapter 998 Batman vs. Superman
That's right, it's a force field.

When Deckard Anlen made up his mind to return to that exhibition, he was undoubtedly certain of this.

No force in the world can hold a person as firmly as a powerful law of nature.

It's not that difficult to temporarily overcome gravity.

Children can mischievously jump over stairs, elderly women can lift lighter pieces of paper from low to high places, and a taut bowstring can even shoot arrows at eagles.

A strongman can throw an apple straight up into the air, making it a tiny black dot in the sky.

Gravity is something that exists there, seemingly there but not quite, swirling around you like an invisible pair of arms encircling you.

Therefore, it will eventually fall to the ground.

Gu Weijing's exhibition is the apple, while Deckard Anlun is the eagle struck by an invisible arrow.

He wandered aimlessly through the city, watching baseball games on streaming media on his phone, completely forgetting about Gu Weijing's exhibition.

He repeatedly and forcefully tossed the apple upwards.

It seems to have some effect.

There were many times.

Deckard Anlen felt he had briefly escaped the influence of the exhibition, and he immersed himself in a vacation.

The exciting sporting events, the delicious food on the buffet, and the city scenery temporarily captured Deckard Anlen's attention.

But when he is distracted, when he is lost in thought, when he is waiting for the waiter to serve tea, or even in the crucial ninth inning of a baseball game, in the instant that decides the fate of both teams.

There will always be a moment or two when—

He couldn't maintain his mental focus, nor could he maintain the mental power to make the apple fly far upwards.

The apple will then fall straight down with a whooshing sound.

With a loud "clang!", it slammed into the forehead of European strongman Deckard Anlen; the higher it was thrown, the harder it hit.

It made him furious.

It hit him so hard he felt dizzy.

He was hit...

Unforgettable.

Deckard Anlen realized that he couldn't relax and get rid of Gu Weijing's art exhibition by controlling himself to "not think about it."

There's always a stone, an apple, that you can't let go of.

It is that stone that God created, “the stone that God cannot lift” (note). If even God cannot lift it, how could Superman? The act of trying with all one’s might to stop thinking about something includes being constantly thinking about it.

(Note: This is a famous theological paradox: Could an omnipotent God create a stone that He Himself could not lift?)
then.

Deckard Anlen kept himself busy again, wanting to focus all his energy on work. The artist remembered his agent telling him that a young biographer wanted to inquire about a visit.

Deckard Anlen agreed to the request and replied to his agent that he had some free time in the next few days.

If the other party can arrive in Abu Dhabi within three days.

Then.

He can meet with the other party.

He made a few more work calls, and then, almost involuntarily, opened the online version of *Painting* magazine. Deckard Anron couldn't resist checking out the magazine's coverage of the exhibition.

I refreshed the page several times.

Aside from a couple of lines of related news from a few weeks ago, Deckard Anlen found nothing.

Deckard Anlen suddenly realized that today was the media photo day for the exhibition, and given the size and industry standing of the magazine "Painting," their related media reports wouldn't come out so quickly.

If Deckard Anlun hadn't been so "concerned" about that exhibition, he wouldn't have forgotten this common sense.

The apple hit him hard on the head again.

He switched to the Buyer's Guide section, opened the filter compiler, and checked the two options: "Living Artists" and "Sorted by Total Transaction Price from High to Low".

He skipped over the top few names that have remained almost unchanged for millennia.

soon.

Deckard Anlen found his name.

"Dack Anlen"

"A signed artist with Maes Gallery, a representative artist of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a recipient of the Chicago Fine Arts and Theatre Award in 2001."

Total transaction price: $47,982,000.00

Recommendation rating: 2.5 stars

The art market has data-sharing agreements with almost all major auction houses, excluding private transactions between lesser-known collectors. Over the past decade, Deckard Anron's personal works have generated approximately $4700 million in sales, ranking him 42nd among living artists worldwide.

"They dropped three places."

Deckard Anlen gritted his teeth.

If we only look at the investment market's activity over the past five years, Dac Anlen's data index ranks 87th globally, but if we only look at the past three years, his ranking has fallen to outside the top 100.

The art auction industry is notoriously murky, and has long been believed to involve extensive market manipulation, money laundering, and fraudulent transactions.

Some are in a gray area, while others are outright illegal.

It has always been a legend.

In order to maintain their "reputation," top galleries sometimes arrange for their own buyers to enter the art market with large sums of money to manipulate it.

But no matter what.

The list published by the magazine "Oil Painting" is already one of the most authoritative and "clean" lists in the industry. On the same list, the name "Dike Anlen" is drawing a significant downward curve, plummeting straight to the ground.

Deckard Anlen typed the name "Gu Weijing" on the keyboard again.

On all the available transaction rankings, Gu Weijing's ranking was "999+", and his total transaction amount was zero. Deckard Anlun knew perfectly well that Gu Weijing did not have any works on the market yet, but even so, it gave him a great sense of security.

Somehow.

He desperately needs authoritative media like "Oil Painting" magazine to boost his confidence.

but.

Deckard Anlun stared blankly at Gu Weijing's "three-star" art recommendation rating for a while.

He knew that this star rating was just a load of nonsense.

"A meaningless star rating."

For the youngest winner in the history of an international biennial, a three-star rating seems reasonable.

Deckard Anlen knew it all depended on whether Gu Weijing could establish a foothold in the market and weather... the tsunami unleashed by Sarah.

Star ratings are meaningless.

Two stars is too high, and five stars is too low. There's simply no other possibility.

The seemingly mediocre artist ranking of the "Oil Painting" magazine, in this context... becomes...particularly subtle.

Deckard Anlen knew perfectly well that *Painting* magazine was playing a hypocritical game, and his claim of "fairly determining recommendation stars based on artistic merit" was utterly unbelievable. The star rating he assigns to an artist with tens of millions in sales is certainly far less valuable than the star rating of a painter ranked "999+" in the market.

The other party's "three stars" rating was also the result of internal power struggles and compromises within the magazine "Oil Painting". It is likely that even the magazine "Oil Painting" did not know how to assign a recommendation level to Gu Weijing.

can.

It's half a star higher than me.

Deckard Anlen just always had this inexplicable sense of unease.

In the exhibition information section, I browsed through the reports about his own performance at the Louvre Abu Dhabi back then.

"A utterly boring disaster. The starting quarterback of the Maestro Gallery looks like he can't even tell which way the goal is anymore."

"A clumsy performance."

"As it turns out, leaving Europe and heading to the desert doesn't necessarily guarantee success. The princes of the UAE certainly have plenty of money, but sorry, they're not stupid. Billionaires can spend a million dollars on a set of wallpaper to decorate their walls. But, Dyke Anlun's work... I'm sorry, Your Highness, perhaps we should just buy some wallpaper instead."

Deckard Anlen looked at the comments.

Watch and watch.

Tears streamed down his face as Deckard Anlen wept bitterly in the hotel.

He is Deckard Anlen.

He was an artistic superman; he once believed he could tow an entire Boeing 747 into the sky.

How did he end up like this?!

-

"Later, I went to the art museum again."

When Deckard Anron told Robert this story, he looked haggard and spoke with an eerily calm tone.

"On the second day?"

Robert, whose attention was drawn to the story, asked.

"Do not."

“That very evening,” the artist said.

When he's overwhelmed by emotions, and neither the Chicago White Sox baseball game nor his full-fledged work can help Deckard Anlen, he has one more super trick up his sleeve.

I walked into a bar.

One ounce of Baileys, one ounce of Blue Curry, two ounces of Galliano, plus two ounces of Bacardi rum—this drink, which can ignite a fiery blaze like pure alcohol, can also burn away all your troubles in minutes.

Aside from waking up with a headache the next day and not knowing who I am, and losing my wallet twice, I have no other drawbacks.

The problem is, this is Abu Dhabi.

For obvious reasons, it was impossible for Deckard Anlen to find any open bars on the street.

and so.

He still went to the Louvre.

When an apple falls on his head repeatedly, once, twice, then three times, even if you don't grasp the law of universal gravitation, you can still glean something else.

such as.

Deckard Anlen decided that since there was no liquor to help him fall asleep, he could just eat the apple whole.

He had to convince himself from the bottom of his heart that Gu Weijing's exhibition was nothing special, and that all the comments made about his exhibition could also be made about Gu Weijing's exhibition.

Art critics are all sons of bitches.

Why shouldn't Gu Weijing be criticized?

Deckard Anlun struck a few poses, dramatically throwing himself out of the museum, and as the day drew to a close, he returned once again to the Luvu Museum in Abu Dhabi.

“I feel intensely ashamed of my behavior. I know the staff in the exhibition hall recognize me.”

"Dack Anlen said."

“I think even just the act of leaving and then returning could convey a sense of ‘admission’ to the outside world, so when I entered the exhibition hall, I was sneaking around. I looked at this exhibition, then that exhibition, wandering aimlessly. It wasn’t until the exhibition hall was about to close that I seemed to walk into the Maes Gallery’s exhibition hall unintentionally.”

"And then... that exhibition amazed you?"

Robert asked.

"Do not."

“I quickly walked around the exhibition hall again. I mentally cursed all the critics who had said bad things about me, all of them, right in front of those works.” Deckard Anlen smiled slyly.

"After coming out, I felt much better."

Until that night.

An apple hit Deckard Anlen on the head again, and he... dreamed of Gu Weijing's art exhibition.

"I am a lucky one."

Deckard Anlen said, "If I weren't a lucky one, I probably... you wouldn't be sitting here today, wanting to write my biography. How many people in the world have their own biographies?"

How many people's works can sell for $50 million?

Dac Anlen is in the top 0.01 percent of the industry, whether his world ranking is 42, 87, or outside the top 100.

He was always in the top 0.01%.

Of the ten thousand people who dream of becoming great painters and pick up a paintbrush, only one or two will become Deckard Anlen.

“Like a superhero story, a person, carrying a certain story, bearing a certain destiny, is destined to save the world. That’s my story,” Deckard Anlen thought for a moment.

"At least, this is the beginning of my story."

“People used to say I was the second Andy Warhol, the second Hearst. No, at the beginning, I was much more successful than them. Their artistic paths were full of ups and downs. Hearst said that he was a failure throughout the 1990s. But me, I was specially admitted to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and when I graduated, I got the opportunity to participate in an exhibition held by the campus museum. It caused a sensation in Chicago at the time.”

"Dack Anlen said."

"Of course, back then, I was probably a few years older than I am now, and it wasn't a solo exhibition. But it was the Chicago Museum, which is affiliated with the school and is one of the most famous museums in the United States. I remember that when I walked out from where my work was displayed, there were Monet's 'Water Lilies' and Van Gogh's 'Self-Portrait' in the adjacent exhibition hall. Walt Disney's grandson even came to see the exhibition, and I clearly remember that he stopped in front of my work."

"What does this mean for a young person who has just graduated from college, right?"

“I quickly signed with the gallery. At first, a painting cost $7,000, but soon the amount was several times that. The gallery covered all my exhibition expenses, and even my living expenses.”

"In short, my start was very successful."

"Ecstasy, hesitation, confusion, indifference—these are the four seasons of my life so far."

As Dirk said.

"The process of viewing the exhibition is like turning the four seasons upside down."

(End of this chapter)