▲ Auctioneer Lin Zhengping Photo/ Southern People Weekly reporter Liang Chen
These physical tests may be relatively small, and the biggest difficulty faced by auctioneers is that they do not dare to lose their minds at all, "a little wandering, accurate mistakes". Not only to calculate at high speed, but also all the organs must be highly concentrated, always pay attention to the demeanor of the bidders under the stage, "There are hundreds of people below, some old connoisseurs, who take a card for you to hold honestly, some number plates are not lifted, fingers are shaking, from the first row to the last row of horns, you have to see in time." ”
This article was first published in Southern People Weekly
Text / Southern People Weekly reporter Sun Lingyu from Beijing
In today's increasingly sophisticated navigation apps, probably few people can resist the temptation of relying on mobile phones when going out. But I don't know whether it is out of stubborn resistance to the era of intelligence, or self-confidence is born with an unusual brain capacity, anyway, in the past few decades, Lin Zhengping has been so sharp.
He is a loyal believer in "walking thousands of miles", over sixty years old, still running in the Arctic antarctic, and before the epidemic in 2019, he also went to Greenland to climb glaciers. He is obsessed with culture and art in various places and has visited 120 countries so far. No one assigned him tasks, and it was all "cultural investigations" that were not in a hurry and took care of themselves - even if they arrived at the Yucatan Peninsula, the birthplace of Mayan culture, they did not ask for a guide, and before going out, they "printed" the map in their minds, leaving no room for departure, and riveting observation.
Not seeking to see the whole but to drill deeply, he retains the style of the past that travelers have focused on. "I knew all about fine art beforehand, such as Rubens' The Capture of the Daughters of Liuhipos, in Munich. I went to the museum to see the painting. If you look at Bruegel, it's either the Royal Gallery in Brussels or Austria. (When I watched) I was careful, thought hard, and serious, so I remembered. To take the problem with it, or with this understanding and comprehensive view of history, the view of art is not the same as looking at the flowers. ”
With the down-to-earth accumulation of the past few decades, he can now stretch out an artistic map at any time in his mind, "There are seven train stations in Paris. To go to Giverny's Monet's house is Saint Lazare, you have to go to Switzerland is the East Station, to the Netherlands is the North Station", and even formed a unique search engine. When it comes to specific works, he can blurt out from the beginning and end of his creation to the context of collection, until now he is stored in any art museum.
"The two horses of the Six Horses of Zhaoling were stolen and sold abroad in 1914, in the Penn Museum (the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia), not in the Metropolis, nor in Washington.
"Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", not to mention the small, the big "Sunflowers" has a total of four pictures, two paintings of 15 flowers, two paintings of 12 flowers, one of the 15 flowers in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and one in the National Gallery of London, the art gallery is not in Britain, in Trafalgar Square, Trafalgar is when the two british and French fleets - or the age of sailing - fought, the British won, after this battle established maritime hegemony. Above the large pillars of the square is the commander of the fleet at the time, General Nelson, and the building behind it is the National Gallery. Galleries and galleries in English are a word, gallery, and you can't translate it into a national gallery, that's not right.
"There are also two 12-flower paintings, the background is not yellow, but blue, one is in Philadelphia, not in Penn, it is a museum in Philadelphia, and one is in Munich. There was also a painting auctioned, bought by Japan's Yasuda Fire Marine Insurance Company, but that one was controversial. Some European experts have issued a joint statement saying that his painting is a fake.
"I went to Tokyo to take a closer look, and it was in the art museum of the Yasuda Fire Marine Insurance Building on the west side of Shinjuku. After a closer look, you will find that its brush strokes are not so natural and have a tracing feeling. And those four paintings are all signed, his signature is not Van Gogh, Van Gogh is the last name, he signed Vincent, the Japanese vase has no words on it. Of course, it cannot be said that no word is not (authentic), and this cannot be the only evidence. Moreover, he also photographed it. In the 80s, I shot tens of millions (39 million) dollars, and at that time I was dizzy, how much did I make Chinese in the 80s? Thirty or forty dollars to support a family! ”
"What you buy at auction doesn't rule out being fake?"
"This is too complicated to say," lin Zhengping said with a smile as one of the first auctioneers to obtain qualification certificates and have been practicing for more than 20 years after the promulgation of the 1997 Auction Law in China. Our line is very interesting, fun, until you are old and you see how interesting it is. Let's just talk casually, this just talked out of the tip of the finger is not enough. ”
▲ Lin Zhengping attended the graduation ceremony of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Photo/ Courtesy of the interviewee
"He can't be ignorant enough to satirize him"
In the early years, in order to avoid auctioning imitations, some people went to the auction house and only bought the cover works of the catalogue. Lin Zhengping explained, "Isn't the cover just a face? Surely it won't be fake, and if it's fake, it won't be a slap in the face, right? And it is definitely a boutique, the appreciation space is guaranteed, this is from the perspective of the businessman to understand the problem, buy the cover will certainly not be wrong. ”
Bidders have different ideas and different hobbies, and there are businessmen with deep wealth and deep skills sitting in the audience, which requires the auctioneer on the stage responsible for briefly introducing the collection, neither too shallow nor too proud. "We can order a little bit of basic vintage, heyday and so on, but you can't say too much, and you have to decide what to say on the spot, you can't rehearse, you can't do your homework, you can only rely on your skills." 」
Once Lin Zhengping presided over the auction of a painting of Qi Baishi, "Qi Baishi and Zhang Daqian are the most common on the auction site, about 80% of the auction catalogues are printed with Qi Baishi, but there are also a small number of Qi Huang, who in our industry says Qi Huang?" I will talk about the next Piece no. 123 Qi Baishi's "Shrimp Chart". The next person at the bottom, immediately said auctioneer, read it wrong, this is Qi Huang. Do you think this kind of thing can happen? It just happens. ”
"It is said that I should damage him, I don't even know this, you still go to the auction house, go home, and learn first." But you can't damage him, he can't be ignorant and can't be sarcastic or sarcastic, all the guests who come are God. I said I'm sorry, sir, because Qi Baishi was from 1864, and it was all from the Qing Dynasty. In the past, these ancients were different from us, they had words and numbers, Qi Baishi had dozens of numbers, and Baishi was only one of them. There is a lot of knowledge in this regard, and we have a business manager below, please ask him to explain it to you. Less than 5 seconds after speaking, the man left the scene with interest. ”
A mouthful of Beijing from Dantian, a pair of Dan phoenix eyes smiling, no matter what the situation, as an auctioneer, Lin Zhengping always remembers "must be polite". In December 2021, at the Beijing Huachen Autumn Auction he presided over, it was a kind outfit for several hours.
Unlike the auctioneers on the screen who have a serious face and always urge buyers to make decisions within three times of repeated quotations, Lin Zhengping wears a burgundy bow tie, the pocket of his dark suit jacket reveals a corner of the handkerchief, and the head of the one-meter-eighty-meter figure is elegant, bowing first after taking the stage, "I hope to bring you a wonderful auction today." ”
In the process, he looked sideways at the works from time to time, briefly introduced the history of the painter and gave some natural feelings, "A bit of impressionist feeling, right?" "It's really a bit of cézanne, the sense of inclination is really good." When no one raised the card again, he still calmly asked softly in different directions, "Is anyone still interested?" "Are you still thinking about it here?" "Will you add another ten thousand?" After determining that the bid price of a lot would not rise again, he decisively knocked on the mallet in his hand and signaled to the buyer, "Sir, yours!" ”
In this money game, people not only experience the excitement of the soaring numbers, but also enjoy the harmonious atmosphere, no sense of oppression, but in Lin Zhengping's view, it is just the auctioneer's explicit style, the real core is, "Without this foundation, where do you go, you all speak layman's words, all can't step on the point, right?" ”
Hosting the auction is not as simple as shouting 1234 on the stage, Lin Zhengping has seen some TV station backgrounds, golden microphones and even hosts of the Spring Festival Gala host try to auction, many times are not so handy. The reason is that hosting the auction requires years of preparation, "Shooting calligraphy and paintings, Zhang Daqian and Qi Baishi can't tell, how to shoot, at least a thousand painters in their hearts, dare to stand there." From pottery to porcelain, bronzes, furniture, miscellaneous, you know it all. Porcelain, that is said to be almost 1500 years since the Tang Dynasty, jade is 8000 years old, starting from Hongshan, ming and qing dynasty classical furniture is also 600 years old, how much knowledge do you have to pack? ”
"You have to study history, because it is all related to history, the Han Dynasty is something that has the historical atmosphere of the Han Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty people are fat, so everything is fat." Shoot the guqin, you at least Zhongni, Fuxi, banana leaf you understand, right? You think it's made of pine wood, you think it's made of elm, you think it's made of yellow pear, but they're all sycamore wood, you don't even mention it, that amount of knowledge is too big. This line does not allow nonsense, to know is to know, not to know is not to know, not to pretend, can not pretend. Blind, you can't talk. ”
In 1997, he went to Shanghai to participate in the first domestic auctioneer qualification certificate pre-examination training, which was held three times that year, with a total of hundreds of candidates, and few are still auctioneers. "This industry is more difficult, because its knowledge is too large, others say that Qi Baishi painted a picture in 1966, you also said that this painting is good and good, but Qi Baishi died in 1957, you have to know it all, otherwise you will make a mistake." You can't talk about it, you're out. ”
▲ Lin Zhengping participated in the Christie's auction in London Photo / Courtesy of the interviewee
"A little distracted, accurate"
The pass rate of the auctioneer qualification examination in China is only about ten percent, the content of the examination is still four, three theories plus one practical operation, the only change is that the last item of the previous theoretical part (auction foundation, auction case, economic foundation) was cancelled (due to the signing of contracts, the economic foundation includes consumption law, contract law and other economic concepts as well as economic concepts such as GDP and GNP), replaced by auction common sense.
The auction is divided into two categories: art and assets, real estate, bankrupt enterprises, customs fines, including naming rights, intellectual property rights can be auctioned, as well as cars and other materials. Depending on the nature of the item, the speed of the auction will also change, with the art auction being the slowest.
Lin Zhengping imitated the scene of auctioning tuna that he had seen at the Tokyo pier, the fish had to go into the freezer after being taken down from the fishing boat, and the sun would be sunburned for a while, so it must be fast, and when the price was asked, there was almost no gap in the mouth, "1000, 2000, 3000, next." ”
From the first time he walked into the auction house abroad, the auctioneer left lin Zhengping in the audience with the impression of "wit, intelligence, and first-class eloquence", and now nearly 30 years have passed, he has seen thousands of games. Big collector An Siyuan died in 2015, and he didn't miss an auction that lasted a week in New York.
Although art auctions are not as hot as other categories, the difficulty of auctions has increased unabated. Depending on the starting price of the product, the auctioneer needs to calculate according to different ladder formulas during the auction and raising the card. Generally, China is now usually divided into three ladders, Christie's and Sotheby's are four equal ladders: between 1-2 is 1, 2-3 is 2, 3-5 is 2, 5, 8, 5-10 is between 5, which means that the starting price is between 100,000 and 200,000 works of art, each card raised under the stage represents an increase in bids of 10,000; art with a starting price of between 200,000 and 300,000, each card raised under the stage represents an increase in bids of 20,000, and so on.
The order of appearance of lots is not arranged in order of starting price, the price difference between the different lots is often very large, the calculation method needs to be constantly adjusted, and the auction rules of different companies may not be the same, which requires agile response. When working as a trainer in the auction association, Lin Zhengping occasionally met students from the Department of Foreign Languages, and even if their English skills were solid, they still could not react in the face of digital auctions in English. "One bump and you panic, and when you panic, it's all messed up."
Mistakes are a big no-no for auctioneers. In the auction for hours or even a dozen hours, the auctioneer not only has to maintain the external image - the standing posture cannot be twisted and twisted, the body must be boarded, and the strength is held; the voice cannot shout for 5 minutes to split, "even if the wireless microphone is pinned, but if the voice used on weekdays is used, it will be too thin, there is no penetration, and it will not be able to fight out." You have to use a voice similar to the bel canto, and the voice must at least have a suppressive ups and downs. Lin Zhengping's basic skills training is to read poetry, "Song ci is better than Tang poetry, not so regular, help to master and control language, words and sentences"; and finally, "drink water and do not go to the toilet." ”
These physical tests may be relatively small, and the biggest difficulty faced by auctioneers is that they do not dare to lose their minds, "a little wandering, accurate mistakes." "Not only do you have to calculate at high speed, but all the organs must be highly concentrated, and always pay attention to the demeanor of the bidders under the stage," There are hundreds of people below, some old connoisseurs, who take a card for you to hold honestly, some number plates are not lifted, fingers are shaking, from the first row to the last row of horns, you have to see in time. ”
After all, the auction is not a one-sided performance, "I have to know their mentality, behavior, such as a landscape painting of a thousand, through the understanding of today's art market, assuming that the value is 10 million, then from 1 million to the time of auction, it is very relaxed, almost eight or nine million, then to start guiding, they have to consider, to give them time to fully think." Buyers in the north and southern people are not the same, the north is straightforward, the south is delicate, thinking about things a little more, Shanxi merchants and Zhejiang merchants can be the same, so when auctioning, you must always grasp the mentality of people. ”
▲ Lin Zhengping lecturing at the British Museum in London Photo/Courtesy of the interviewee
"Only predict the lower limit, how much price can be auctioned upwards, I don't know"
Being in the first scene of the art trade, how as an auctioneer views the fate of different works, and how abstract values are defined by naked prices, are all interesting questions.
As far as Lin Zhengping is concerned, on the one hand, he frankly admits that he really does not appreciate the new art that is emerging in his personal preferences. He called Kaws's work "Forked Eye" and Jeff Koons' representative installation "Big Balloon Dog," "I probably understand a little bit worse, we used to see what broken plastic, I don't want a hundred dollars, now tens of thousands." Banksy's work is all graffiti, and now it's all in the hundreds of millions." This attitude of breaking the cult coincides with the mocking attitude of the artist himself, and banksy's 2021 live broadcast burned into an NFT, eye-catching digital art is called: I can't believe you morons actually buy this shit(I can't believe you morons actually buy this shit).
But on the other hand, Lin Zhengping can also fully understand the popularity of these works and the pursuit of the market. After the epidemic began, the traditional industry was impacted, and many short video platforms came to him to settle in, hoping that he would open a personal channel to talk about art content. In the process of communication, a person in charge said, "Our industry is old in our thirties, and we retired early at the age of 40." ”
Therefore, in Lin Zhengping's observation and understanding, "Now a group of rich people are all twenty or thirty years old, who are not interested in traditional things, so they buy fork eyes and buy big balloon dogs." Times are changing, and Poly is now also holding a tide play exhibition. ”
▲ Lin Zhengping gave a speech at the Qinghai Academy of Fine Arts Photo /Courtesy of the interviewee
The idea of outstanding works of art does not arise spontaneously, but is the result of a complex system of patronage, ideology, money, and education, supported by university curricula and museums— factors that guide what kind of work of art we think is particularly noteworthy.
Lin Zhengping analyzed, "Renaissance works are all in the museum, how do you fry the plate? The market has to be active, it has to keep flowing, because the economy has to turn, you don't have anything to do with it, how does it turn? So the most important thing in the market before was the Impressionist thing, and if the Impressionism goes forward, you see that the market rarely appears. Monet died in 1926, less than 100 years after us, so he still has a relatively large number of these things in the market, but now the Impressionists have earned almost the same. You have to keep having something new, and after Impressionism, it's Andy Warhol, Basquia, and so on, including the kaws and Koons now. ”
In the year of the 1997 Auction Law, Beijing did not hold several official auctions a year. In the ninth year, when Lin Zhengping first entered the industry, he heard that he had auctioned 1 million, and he felt "my God", "Qi Baishi was tens of thousands of yuan at that time, and a hundred thousand yuan was good." Now say a few million, a little better will sell tens of millions. Margins are now rising. At first, you only need to pay 10,000 yuan, then 50,000, 100,000, and now if you want to shoot 50 million things, it is normal to pay one or two million in advance. ”
In the second half of SARS in 2003, he really felt the red fire of the Chinese art market, "Teng's moment, there is too much to live, about a year I have to shoot 100 times, which is equivalent to shooting one in three days, and the whole of China probably except Tibet did not go, I basically went." Witnessing the outbreak from scratch and in an instant, in 2005, fu Baoshi's "Ode to The Rain Flower Platform" that he presided over the auction sold for 46 million yuan, setting a national record for that year, and then there was a peak in 2009, and the domestic art auction market entered the "100 million yuan era", he felt less surprised.
"We generally only predict the lower limit of this industry - at least how much money can be auctioned, and we don't know how much we can go up. Society is developing, and it has something to do with GDP per capita. The Asian Tigers are similar to China's, and their art market started to kick in at a time when gdp was about $1,000. At about $3,000, there should be a period of development. So you see, in 2003, China's GDP was exactly 3,000, and the law was exactly the same. About 5000, there can be a big development. By 10,000, it had entered a stable period. 5,000 in 2009, now almost ten thousand, you see now basically stable, there are no big ups and downs. ”
When he entered the industry more than twenty years ago, he saw a huge space for the appreciation of art, "The Western art fund, people have played for at least a hundred years, the Qing Dynasty people began to play, everything has traces to follow." How much money they bought then, how much money they have now, doubled ten thousand times! 100 times in 100 years, 10 times a year! ”
What still attracts him to this day is the charm of the art world, "Why am I willing to do this now?" This industry is interesting, there is no retirement of this saying, often when shooting to see a previously unknown, you live to 100 years old, to 100 years old can not finish learning. ”