Unscrupulous image editor 丨Geethan
When you think of Artron, what comes to mind?
The world's largest art printing company? The largest art database in China? The industry's authoritative Artron Index?
These are the answers, but we would rather hear how Artron's founder, Wanjie, understood Artron.
The best way to get to know a business is to get to know its founder. The best way to understand a person is to understand his motivation for doing things and the logic of his thinking.
On the early morning of a rainy day before the Qingming Dynasty, I came to the headquarters of Artron in Beijing and opened this interview.
Wanjie is 60 years old and Artron is 29 years old. This is a delicate time node, and I hope you will learn something in this interview.
Wanjie
Chairman of Artron Culture Group
▲ Wanjie belongs to the tiger, and this tiger head work placed in Wanjie's office is made using a variety of processes developed by Artron.
Conversations with An Interview
Moderator (G)/Geethan; Interview Guest (W)/Wanjie
- 01 -
"I love business management, it's a creative thing."
G: Hello Mr. Wan, I am glad that you have accepted a personal interview with Wujie. As usual, we start with the environment in which you grew up in your childhood. What kind of family did you grow up in?
W: I am from Beijing, my mother is a Chinese teacher, my father was originally a soldier, and then he transferred to the Chinese Academy of Sciences and worked in scientific and technological intelligence. I grew up in a good family with good financial conditions and did not suffer anything.
G: What were your hobbies when you were a kid?
W: When I was six or seven years old, I liked to play football and draw, and I began to like stamp collecting in junior high school, and I also liked the model of technology.
G: Are these hobbies influenced by their parents and those around them?
W: Yes, not only my parents, but the people around me in elementary school were hidden dragons and Crouching Tigers, and one of the school's janitors turned out to be researchers in the history museum.
There are many books and pictorials in my family, and there are books in addition to books at home. When I was a kid, there was only one bookstore in the Pingli area, and my father would take me every week. My father collected the books very nicely, neatly, and took a lot of notes. My philately was influenced by my father—collecting, storing, organizing, categorizing, and the formation of these habits was related to him.
▲The book wall of Beijing Artron Art Center has many books and picture albums that have been out of print.
I grew up very interested in the illustrations in books, such as "The History of Rulin", I can't understand the text, but I like the pictures inside. Because of my father's work, I grew up exposed to many color samples of foreign scientific and technological equipment, imported coated paper, which was difficult to see in that era. I took these samples and distributed them to my classmates, wrapping up the book.
My parents didn't control me strictly and were very free. I'm not interested in things that have to be memorized by rote, I'm interested in creative things like movies. I like to study all kinds of movies, and when I was in college, my father came to school to give me movie tickets. The incident was also publicly criticized by the school, saying that he was posing as a parent. They don't think it's possible for parents to run to school and watch a movie for their children (laughs).
▲ The large-scale shooting camera collected by Artron Beijing headquarters is the world's largest and most accurate fully automated film machine with the largest format and the highest precision.
G: From 1980 to 1984, you studied printing machinery at Beijing Printing Institute. How do you rate what college means to you?
W: Today's printing schools emphasize the combination of technology and art, and study how art uses technology. But in our time, printing was mechanical manufacturing, pure manufacturing. Printing is a very traditional industry, but at the same time it is a high-tech industry. But just like the core technology of the camera has not been mastered in China, the domestic printing technology is more of a marginal technology.
I had no interest in college majors, it was my parents who reported it. I had no problem with basic science, but when I learned professional classes, I felt bored and didn't have any creativity.
During college, I spent more of my time going to concerts, ballets, and photography exhibitions. Until my junior year, when I learned the course "Business Management", I thought it was the most interesting because it was creative and could give me a lot of space, and I was still a class representative.
G: From 1985 to 1992, you worked at Shenzhen Micron Color Printing Co., Ltd., and then founded Artron in 1993. These seven years are sure to be a crucial stage for you.
W: Micron is a Sino-Japanese joint venture. Here's a dramatic thing: The boss who interviewed me in 1985 was a Japanese. In 2003, he retired in Osaka and I invited him to work at Artron and became his boss – he worked at Artron for 15 years, from the age of 60 to the age of 75.
The first two "foreign aides" of Artron, one was him, engaged in technology, the other was engaged in business, and he used to be my boss in Japan.
G: Did he have a big impact on you?
W: He was the head of the technology department of a Japanese listed company, and the technical aspects had a big impact on me, but then he consulted with me about everything, and basically I was managing him (laughs).
G: What have you learned in the past seven years?
W: I think it's been seven years since I went to college. Micron was the most advanced plate making company in Japan at that time, and now called "prepress", which is actually a company that does image data processing. There are many uses for data processing now, but the use at that time was printing.
▲ Artron attaches great importance to learning in technology, and the picture shows an ancient wet rubbing technique and its application learned in Turkey.
In this company, I think everything is very new and great, and I have the feeling of Grandma Liu entering the Grand View Garden. Its equipment is the most advanced in the world, and the working environment is fully air-conditioned, constant temperature and humidity. In the 1980s, even star hotels were rare, but being in such a modern company greatly broadened my horizons.
On the human level, the Japanese spirit of work need not be said again. The Characteristics of the Japanese are a very efficient team together, but the level of single pulling out will decrease.
In the past seven years, I have received very systematic training, starting from production management, to technical management, business management, financial management, personnel management, to the operation and management of the entire company, which laid a very solid foundation for me to start a business later. During this period, in 1988, I went to Japan to study, and there were 17 Different Work Links of Japanese experts who took turns to train me, and I stayed in the company late every day.
I know what is a good thing, what is a good environment, a good technology, a good process, a good profession; I know what a good talent is, how to train talent. At Micron, I was elected to the Board of Directors at the age of 26 because of my strong learning ability, management ability and strong sense of responsibility to our clients. Later, when it was my turn to send employees to Japan to study, some of them did not want to go, I said you must go, I personally sent them to Guangzhou to take a plane.
After I founded Artron, from 1999 to 2019, before the new crown, I would send my employees to Japan to study every year.
▲ Platinum printing technology finished products.
- 02 -
"True art is the wealth of all mankind."
G: What was your original intention in starting Artron?
W: Initially, I wanted to gradually make Artron a company that specialized in art printing, which was a very strong idea at the time. "Artron" is transliterated from Cantonese, and Artron in Cantonese first came from English. As can be seen from the name "ARTRON", Artron's DNA is a combination of art and electronic technology.
G: In the most concise sentence, please tell readers who do not know Artron, what is Artron?
W: Currently, Artron is the world's largest art data processing company. We based on printing, locked in art printing, and then from art printing to the data processing stage of art.
We have thousands of employees working on art data every day, which is at the heart of Artron, and printing is just one way to apply data.
▲ Artron provides digital services for art collections in various museums, art galleries and other institutions.
G: I heard you have a "1000" goal. You have said that the resources of Artron's art database are cultural treasures belonging to all mankind and must be passed down for thousands of years.
W: Art is a very fragile thing, such as a fire, an earthquake, it may be gone. The digitization of works of art is a very basic work and a very valuable work. Art as a wealth, not Artron's, even after the copyright period is not the artist himself, nor is it the nation and the state, you can not say that Leonardo da Vinci is the wealth of Italy, the concept of the state has been very diluted here.
True art is the wealth of the whole of humanity, and so is the art of data. Our generation, when it is capable, has the responsibility and obligation to preserve them. This is the social value of Artron doing this. At the same time, it is even more valuable if we develop its commercial value as well.
▲ Artron aligns the digital presentation of Shiraishi's works.
G: What does this have practical significance for artists and enthusiasts?
W: For artists, the digitization of works is the trend of the times. For example, the use of blockchain to lock works needs to be digitized; to do publishing, it needs to be digitized; managing works and disseminating works also needs to be digitized.
Artists have the responsibility to sort out their own works, so that future generations' appreciation and research will be clearer.
G: In the early days of Artron's founding, together with Vice President Ge Nong, you led the team to establish Artron's color management standards, APM Artron printing process inspection and maintenance system, AcolorQc, and print color quality control, making Artron the first printing standardization platform in China. In fact, the process of digitization is also a standardized process.
W: Yes, digitalization doesn't work without standardization. There are standards to determine the data, otherwise the data is useless. The nine words I learned most about the Japanese joint venture are standardized, data-based, and standardized.
The artwork may seem unsubstantiated, but it is not. An oil painting, its oil paint model, the color palette hue, are all standard. All we have to do is find out the patterns and standardize them.
G: What do you think is the most important criterion for judging whether Artron is successful and valuable?
W: I always said that Jobs was my idol, and Jobs said, "People live to change the world." "If One day Artron goes out of business, it will bring shocks to all industries, and its value will be realized."
▲ Ancient Apple computer collection in the Corridor of Artron.
I think the most successful sign is that art data can leave something valuable for human beings.
When I was a child collecting stamps, there was a way of playing called "extreme film". Because in the past, stamp companies only issued stamps, regardless of postcards, postcards were published by publishers. I'm keen to find postcards that match the stamps and then find the stamps with the place of origin. For example, if the stamp is a Guilin landscape, you must find a way to get back the Guilin stamp, which is called the limit film.
Growing up, I loved doing things that constantly pushed the limits. More than 20 years ago, others were looking at printing machines, and I was already looking at storage machines, data processing machines. In October this year, I will also import one of the world's top digital printing presses from Japan.
▲ Artron's upcoming printing press.
G: Let's talk about the familiar Artron Art Index, how do you interpret this tool?
W: Since 2000, we have been doing Artron Art Network, the original intention is to provide value-added services for auction companies, they made a paper catalogue, need an electronic version of the convenient dissemination.
Later, the amount of data, the dimension of data is more and more, the market price and market of a work of art, the need for a measurable standard, so we created the Artron Index. There are currently similar indices abroad, one is Artnet in the United States, and the other is Artprice in France.
G: Who would need the Artron Index?
W: People who engage in or are exposed to art transactions, such as auction houses, collectors, art lovers, dealers.
G: Artwork is a non-standard thing, and the benevolent see the wise. There must be value judgments in the index, whether an artist graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and received no systematic education, these are not necessarily related to the value of his works. What value does the Artron Index evaluate?
W: The index does not represent the ontological value of art, the index reflects the commercial value of art. The level of art is emotional, but the market price is rational, and it is related to complex factors such as the year, size, quantity, artist identity, academic background, collector status, popularity of market operation, business model and so on.
An index is just an objective tool to help you evaluate more objectively. For example, if the auction company uses this index, he can see how much money he sold last time, how much money he has set now, and how much money he talks to customers.
This is the same as we do art printing, which is actually irrational. But the part that can be rational makes it rational, and it is still very important to establish standards for setting standards.
▲ Wan Jie introduced the digitization of works of art to historian Yan Chongnian.
G: There is now an element of speculation in the works of many artists with inflated prices. Can the Artron Index play a role in removing the falsehood on this issue?
W: We'll set up some data dimensions, such as the number of times we've appeared in different auction houses. Some works that behave abnormally will not enter our index at all. The index itself has been constantly revising for so many years and striving to be more objective.
Ten years ago, Artron also began to do the identification and filing technology of art works. Originally, the identification of the same work can only rely on experts to identify by hand, and now we will collect the "DNA" of the work - color, material, size, image and other information, so that the data of the blockchain can be done, and then certified by the National Copyright Administration, and the copyright is locked up with big data. At present, this method has served thousands of artists.
G: At present, most of the artists who can enter the Artron Index are the top artists.
W: There will be a lot of young artists who are not at the head of the index in the future.
G: Many people are afraid to buy art, too expensive to buy, cheap and do not know where to come from.
W: Cheap can also buy good things, it is important to have a reference standard system. Our job is to turn art into a consumer good so that you can consume it very clearly. Why can wine and whisky be rated with the tongue? Who sets the standards for a five-star hotel? Standard-setting is an expression of social progress, and so is art.
For art lovers, for example, if the budget is only 5,000 yuan, and you want a work with abstract color blocks and bright hues, we can take the initiative to recommend such artists, and we can save the enthusiasts' investigation of the artist's background and buy it with confidence.
- 03 -
"Printing on demand is the new direction of the future."
G: In terms of printing technology, Artron has won the highest awards for all the top printing technologies in the world. Among them, it is impressive that it has won more than 1,000 Benny Awards, the world's highest award in the printing industry, of which more than 400 are gold awards, and the grand prize (gold in gold) has also been won five or six times.
W: This award is held in Chicago, for printers and publishers around the world, around the quality of printing and printing technology, has a history of more than 70 years, once a year.
For Artron, we sent two or three awards in one category, and in the end we often competed with ourselves. Just like the Chinese table tennis team, the world's top few are Chinese, and there is only one champion.
▲ Artron won the world's highest award in the printing industry in the past years - the Benny Award "Little Golden Man" (partial).
Photographer Peter Lik, who has 18 galleries in the United States, is one of the most successful photographers in business. When he came to us, I said, all you printed in the past was garbage. Now if he wants to print a photo, he will only choose Artron, otherwise he will not print it. He also gave me his first camera.
G: This is a very high degree of recognition.
W: Right. A client like him doesn't slap us in the face, he pays for it, and he doesn't need us to sponsor him for anything.
▲ Artron's album for Peter Lik.
We had great relationships with the world's top photography artists, such as Moriyama Avenue, Salgado, Fkun, Tadao Ando, and I went to Fkun's house to eat. They chose Artron not because chinese stuff is cheap, but because we've reached the world's top level and they recognize our brand.
The reason for this achievement is on the one hand, printing technology, on the other hand, based on the accurate understanding of the customer's work.
At the same time, Artron is also a creative center, where many photography artists will do some experimental exploration.
G: Regarding the artron core you define - the art database, Artron is more of a cooperation with the government and other institutions, is a toB business; and as far as I know, Artron has also begun to pay attention to the consumers of the network terminal toC in recent years, layout print on demand (pod, print on demand), so that photography enthusiasts can order photography works and albums on the website.
W: We have always been a toB enterprise in the past, and through cooperation with large institutions and well-known artists, we have formed an art database and formed a variety of mature products.
In the application of printing, printing on demand is a new direction in the future. The starting volume of traditional printing technology is several hundred copies, and now we use print-on-demand, and the starting volume can be reduced to 1. This business is not only the main business of Artron in the future, but also the huge direction of the future development of the entire printing industry.
▲ Artron's on-demand printing workshop has a mature printing process and machines that look like they are not good, but are actually worth tens of millions.
Amazon selling e-books is not its best business, it is actually still paper books; like JD.com, in the past, it was printed in inventory, and then there were orders, shipped from inventory. Now it's not, it's all pods, placing orders, printing books, mailing, removing inventory. The unit price cost of pods is more expensive than in the past, but it saves a lot of inventory costs and management costs.
G: How do you see the value of photography enthusiasts' work?
W: Every picture we keep has a meaning. It's not that only what is created in art makes sense, but a lot of ordinary pictures are just as important.
Anne Leibowitz has many albums printed in Artron, and she mentions a photograph taken for her mother in the book, which is the most important photo for her. I started working as an artist in my 20s and have been here for more than 30 years now. I've observed that a lot of photographic artists haven't taken pictures of their mothers.
▲ Anne's mother. Everywhere in the book you can see The reading notes made by Wanjie himself.
G: A lot of "family images" become artistic creations because they carry universal social significance, such as the work of Sally Mann. More family images do not have such attributes, but the significance of photography as a recording tool for individuals within family members.
W: Artron Images is now doing "Mother Series" and "Family Portrait Series", covering some themes such as golden weddings and silver weddings. A photographer saw our series and suddenly burst into tears. He said that his mother died last year, and he usually used medium format to take pictures of others, but his mother died, and he could not find a suitable photo as a posthumous photo.
G: I said a lot of macro-level things, but in fact, it ended up being the most specific emotion of people.
W: Emotions are the most delicate and eternal. For the majority of enthusiasts, the meaning of photography to them is first of all to record, but they are also creating, and there are also needs for art appreciation, art collection, and art life.
▲ Print-on-demand works (officially authorized by Kobe Bryant).
▲ Personal print-on-demand works for enthusiasts.
When you take a photo, you record it, and when you choose a photo, you create it. The secondary creation of the image is very important, how to plan, design, what kind of paper to use, what size, what logical relationship, what story to tell, these are very important, but Chinese generally do not know how to tell stories, the ability of secondary creation is not strong.
From the perspective of professional fields, the current development of China's gallery industry is very weak. Without the gallery industry, artists would have no sense of direction. You're a painter, you're dizzy when you paint, you need the gallery to guide them, tell them which direction is good, to do exhibitions and promotions for artists, and that's it.
Adhering to the original intention of "serving the people's art" and practicing "art serving the people" is Artron's corporate mission. Artron now has a group of young people who have returned from studying professional photography abroad, who are themselves creating and serving artists. In the future, Artron Imaging is to use the experience of serving the big names to serve the public. From a hobbyist's point of view, who wouldn't want to entertain themselves more professionally?
▲ "Serve the people's art, art serves the people" inscription.
G: What do you think is the biggest resistance that Artron is currently encountering in toccing products?
W: When it comes to photo printing, the first thing that comes to mind is the photo gallery on the side of the road. But over the years, the service and technology of the photo gallery have not been upgraded at all, and the number is getting smaller and smaller. After all, image is an artistic expression, and you can't look at everything with your mobile phone and screen. The photos on your phone are just information, and emotions aren't enough. For example, if I want to send you a gift, can't I send you a photo on WeChat? I need to print out the photo, and that's a gift.
Now that the pixels of the camera are getting higher and higher, you take pictures with a camera of 100 million pixels, and then look at it with your mobile phone, do you think it is interesting?
▲ This is a huge work taken with a mobile phone and printed using a post-AI algorithm.
Everyone for print output, not without demand, on the contrary, the demand here is huge, arterial is currently facing the problem of how to contact these needs, is the problem of mass brand communication. I have three doubts: I don't doubt that customers have needs; I don't doubt the quality of Artron; I don't doubt the number of customers.
G: The interview ends with you going back to yourself. After more than 30 years of work, what is your favorite part of this career?
W: I'm passionate about this job. Passion comes from two ways, on the one hand, art is something fun, something new, and every day is different. On the other hand, the job has a sense of technology: materials, software, processes, processes, a lot of exploratory, experimental things.
▲Wanjie and Anne Leibovitz.
G: What important habits have you developed?
W: Read books, study, and take notes while learning. I kept the first notebook I went to work in Shenzhen, and I had hundreds of notebooks.
G: What was the book that had the biggest impact on you?
W: Many years ago, the president of the Japan Printing Association wrote "Printing Trends"; Kazuhiro Kobayashi's "The Great Collapse of Publishing"; Uniqlo founder Yanai masa wrote a series of books by Uniqlo.
G: I was recently reading a book by Buffett partner Charlie Munger, which mentioned what Munger asked of himself, one of which was "to do things only within the radius of one's own ability." Do you agree with this view?
W: I agree very much. Unfamiliar majors I am not involved in. I haven't speculated in a penny of stocks, I haven't invested in a square meter of real estate.
G: How do you evaluate your personality?
W: First, there is passion; second, persistence; third, standardization, the pursuit of scientific methods, everything to find the best way to do, who is the best I will cooperate with whom.
G: Thank you for your interview.
▲ Pop style portrait.
-end-
Interview edited by | Geethan
The image provides | Wanjie
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