Throughout his life, half of it was marketing planning, half of it was collecting and painting.
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On January 13, 2022, Ye Maozhong, a well-known Chinese marketing planning expert and brand management expert, and the founder and chairman of Ye Maozhong's marketing planning agency, died in Shanghai at the age of 54 due to terminal cancer.
This news instantly swiped the screen.
After all, "this year's New Year does not receive gifts, only receive brain platinum", "people on the earth know", "visit Heilan Home twice a year", "Men, you have to be cruel to yourself", these brainwashing slogans created by Ye Maozhong have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
"The person who makes the most money in the advertising planning industry", "the person who is the most controversial in the circle", "the person with the most works in the industry", are the three most famous labels on the body of "Mad Man" Ye Maozhong.
Although at one time, people thought that he had lagged behind the Internet era, and the brainwashing advertisements he had planned for Zhihu and Mafengwo for decades suffered from a wave of bad reviews, and consumers were extremely unbiestiful, in September 2021, Ye Maozhong still ranked first in the authoritative list of the brand planning industry evaluated and released by the "China Brand Planning Industry Research Association" in 2021.
With a short and powerful, conflict-creating, and memorable planning style, he launched many successful advertising planning cases, and was known as "the first person in China's marketing planning". From the beginning of his practice, this mad advertiser has survived in the world with the attitude of "no draft, one price, and one-time full payment in place", and has survived in the world with the attitude of Party A and Party A, and has single-handedly challenged the entire foreign advertising system.
In his career, he soared; in life, he suffered major setbacks - his wife died in childbirth and he himself suffered from cancer. In the world of painting and calligraphy that he immersed himself in, he found inner peace and open-mindedness in life.
At 54, for a talented man, it seems a bit early to leave. But for a tough person who has been living in the fluctuations of the times, the excitement has surpassed most people.
Everyone on the earth knows that he is the "first person in China's marketing planning", but they rarely know ye Maozhong who wanders in calligraphy and painting, like the "Ancient Cave Sergeant".
Mad Men's Side A: Painter
In 1968, on a small fishing boat in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province, a boy named Ye Shijin was born.
His mother's health has been poor since the boy was born, and his father has had to take his mother to the shore to see a doctor, sometimes for months without being able to return home.
One year after the parents left, the food on the ship was eaten until only one pumpkin remained. Ye Shijin, who was only 7 years old at the time, and his sister cut the pumpkin into slices, and the two of them ate it separately. Coupled with the few fish that could occasionally be caught, I lived for ten days and finally waited until my parents returned.
After going to school, the school teacher said that Ye Shijin was not a name, so he named himself Ye Maozhong. After becoming an adult, he changed to Ye Maozhong himself.
When he was four years old, Ye Maozhong's father drew a boat for him on the back of the cigarette shell. Just a few lines, the boat appeared. This casual painting made Ye Maozhong pick up the paintbrush as well. And one painting is decades, and it has never stopped.
At that time, the Taizhou Dapu Primary School where he studied had a school-run factory that made colored crayons. The students' weekly labor class is to divide the crayons into twelve colors and pack them into boxes. Students are also allowed to take home broken ones. Since then, holding a crayon to copy the characters on the comic strip, Kurama has become his happiest elementary school life.
Taixing has eight major painting shops, the shaft is framed, but the painting heart is empty. At that time, Ye Maozhong's middle school teacher Liu Zhengfang often went to paint landscapes, birds and animals. As his student, Ye Maozhong began to help color, and later gradually followed suit to draw gourds.
After graduating from high school, I painted the axis at home during the day and went to the waiting room of the steamship dock at night to draw passengers waiting for the ship. Soon, Ye Maozhong drew it.
Ye Maozhong Spring Warm Blossom Oil on Paper Stick 32×24cm 2014
That year, the Cultural Center and the Arts and Crafts Factory recruited artists at the same time. The cultural center recruited five, and the art factory recruited twenty-one. Ye Maozhong was successfully admitted to the Cultural Center and studied under Fu Baoshi's student Wu Junsheng. At the age of eighteen, he was admitted to the stage art major of Jiangsu Provincial Drama School, where he studied under Fu Baoshi's student Tai Qiyou. Influenced by the two teachers and Fu Baoshi's pen and ink, Ye Maozhong's painting ship set sail.
Ye Maozhong Smoke Tree Two Passers-by Color on Paper 34×45cm 2020
Artist Zhou Chunya commented: "Mr. Ye's creative qualities are actually lacking in many artists, his heart is very pure, and he feels that there are no other excessive impurities except painting. ”
In his paintings in recent years, he has condensed his fiery affection for his wife on the canvas. His wife, Gai Cuiyu, a well-known collector, died in june 2014 at the age of 41 while in labor in the United States.
In the middle of the night, the wind and snow think of the deceased. Ye Maozhong in 2020.
At the end of July 2019, after being diagnosed with advanced cancer, he was even more attached to landscape paintings and calligraphy to find inner peace.
In October 2020, the Long Museum (West Bund) launched the exhibition "Ye Maozhong Painting Exhibition", and Liu Yiqian, the founder of the Long Museum, gave Ye Maozhong the only curatorial exhibition in his life, hoping that Ye Maozhong, who had been battling cancer for more than a year at that time, could overcome the disease and reach a higher level in art.
On November 22, 2020, Ye Maozhong opened his auction exhibition in Yongle, Thanksgiving Painting Ye Maozhong Ink World, with a total of 2,386,250 yuan from the auction of 16 works on display, which were donated to the artist Xiangjing Studio in the name of Ye Maozhong.
It is clear that in his ink works, the sense of majestic expanse and the sense of loneliness that cannot be ignored are intertwined. This man has mountains and rivers in his heart, there is wind and snow, there is life and death, there are vicissitudes, and there is also warmth.
Side B of Mad Men: Collector, Art Evangelist
Going from painting to collecting seems to go with the flow. As a low-key man, art collecting is a way for him to communicate with the world.
"I was engaged in collecting, and the first thing I bought was Fu Baoshi's paintings, and I also liked to use boulders when I painted landscapes, which shows the profound influence of the two teachers on me." Ye Maozhong wrote in his self-description.
Decades of struggle, in exchange for 3,000 pieces of collection. The richness of his collection of modern and contemporary calligraphy and painting works, Liu Yiqian, a friend who is also a collector, said that "few people in China can compare at present."
Ye Maozhong and Liu Yiqian (left)
But his road to collecting is also step by step.
In 1997, he began to contact the art collection, and at the beginning of the start, he fell big: a Qi Baishi work bought by more than 400,000 people was actually a fake painting. To this end, he hung the fake painting at home and looked at it every day, and the more he looked at it, the more he looked at it, the more he held his breath. In this regard, I am more energetic with myself, "I must understand what is going on."
There is always a momentum in him: concentrate all your strength to get it done, and never be soft.
The fine art that moves his heart is no exception.
One year, he saw Wu Guanzhong's "Guilin Landscape" at the auction and was so excited that he was suffocating. To do this, I bid with another buyer until I finally got it. Afterwards, some people said that he bought expensive, he did not care, can have a work that makes him like to suffocate, no matter how much money is not expensive.
But in the auction house, it doesn't always get what you want. He would say, "Maybe many years ago, I would have regretted it for 5 months, but my experience has grown, and now I will only regret 5 minutes, or even 5 minutes, and turn my head and forget." The scenery of life is too wonderful, art is originally to add fun to life, why should fun become trouble. ”
Out of his love of art, he has always been passionate about promoting art to his clients, encouraging them to collect art, and calling on entrepreneurs to build art museums in their hometowns. Under his influence, about 30% of customers and friends have begun to collect art. Friends called him an "art evangelist."
His dream is to build an art museum that will transmit the power of art to everyone.
In the eyes of the world, Ye Maozhong is a talented marketing genius, a school of masters who pioneered the "conflict" theory, and a madman whose professional ethics trumps personal morality.
Ye Maozhong, on the other hand, is a painter who is good at painting landscape paintings with boulders, and since 1997, he has devoted his family's money to buy works of art, and has collected a large number of collectors of Paintings by Qi Baishi, Huang Binhong, Zhang Daqian, Xu Beihong, Fu Baoshi and Wu Guanzhong.
Now, in addition to those amazing advertising cases, his dream of art is also like a bright light, staying in the world. Just like his life full of conflicts, whether it is A side or B side, open side or dark side, it is enough to be free and admirable.
Source: The Paper, Sina Finance, Zaiyi
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