51st oil painting

Chapter 1

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The 51st oil painting by Mao Jie

Section 1: Strange Things Happening at the Art Museum

In Shanghai, if a building displays a bronze plaque designating it a "Shanghai Municipal Cultural Relics Protection Unit," it signifies a noble lineage and illustrious history. The S Art Museum is such a building. Its predecessor was the "Shanghai Racecourse," located in what was then a British-American-owned international concession. South of the racecourse was a large grandstand, in front of which lay the famous racecourse. The racecourse made a fortune from horse racing lotteries, formerly known as "Champagne Tickets," and perhaps believing that the best way to flaunt their wealth was to build a building, they generously spent two million silver dollars. In 1933, a imposing, square, five-story granite building rose from the ground, topped with a landmark clock tower.

After 1949, the Racecourse Club was converted into the Municipal Library, becoming a gathering place for bookworms. Several years ago, a new library building was built on Huaihai West Road, and the Racecourse Club was transformed into the Municipal Art Museum. A huge amount of money was invested in renovating the interior of the building, installing central air conditioning and a security monitoring system, while the original style of the building's exterior was preserved.

Today, the S Art Museum is located in Huangpu District, just a hundred meters away from Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street, adjacent to the Shanghai Grand Theatre to the east, and facing People's Square to the south, with the Municipal Government Building right in the center of the square. Undoubtedly, this is the heart of the city center, an absolutely prime location.

S Art Museum is the quietest spot in this bustling city. Its artistic atmosphere makes passersby slow down and cast a reverent glance at this granite building full of classical European charm.

The busiest time at the S Art Museum is during the art biennial. On weekdays, it hosts a permanent exhibition, with two large halls on the ground floor displaying oil paintings. From the second to the fourth floor, there are oil paintings, traditional Chinese paintings, prints, sculptures, and even avant-garde installation art, as well as an art library, shops selling paintbrushes, paints, and rice paper, and more.

Recently, the S Art Museum hosted a solo exhibition of works by the renowned Chinese-American painter, Mr. M. Mr. M paints in oils and graduated from the Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts. After immigrating to the United States in the 1980s, his popularity gradually increased. Two years ago, one of his portrait oil paintings sold for $1.9 million at an American auction house, reportedly setting a record for the best price achieved by a Shanghai-born painter in recent years. This success catapulted him to fame, and he is widely recognized as the most sought-after oil painter in the overseas market since Chen Yifei.

This solo exhibition features 50 works, mostly oil paintings, but also sculptures and sketches.

The exhibition will run for three weeks. Mr. M, despite his busy schedule, made a trip to Shanghai to inaugurate the exhibition. He only made a brief appearance on opening day, holding a small press conference with a limited number of attendees in the VIP room on the fifth floor of the art museum before leaving in a hurry. It is said that he is currently working on an oil painting for a private art museum in London and also on a sculpture for the new headquarters of the Organization of the Monetary Fund in Switzerland, which will be completed next year. He is extremely busy.

Mr. M is indeed popular. Although the ticket price for this exhibition is 50 RMB, while the museum's usual ticket price is 20 RMB, the audience is still coming in droves. In the first two weeks of the exhibition, it broke the record for the number of visitors to a solo exhibition held by the S Art Museum. It was not until the last week that it gradually became quiet.

On the last day of the art exhibition, something unexpected happened.

According to regulations, the art museum closes at 6 p.m. and stops selling tickets at 4 p.m.

The last visitor left the exhibition around 5:15 p.m. Although it wasn't closing time yet, no one else would be visiting. The staff began wrapping up the exhibition more than half an hour early, carefully removing each artwork, checking for damage, and then placing them in pre-prepared protective sleeves.

Because each artwork is a different size, the protective sleeves also vary in size. These protective sleeves are custom-made according to the dimensions of the artwork, and each corner has a computer-printed number. After the artwork is placed inside, a label is affixed to the outside. The label acts as a seal to ensure that the artwork is not opened during transportation. The label is printed with the owner of the artwork and the delivery address.

Of the fifty works, aside from a small number from Mr. M's art studio in New York, the majority are from private collections overseas, including private galleries in Europe, state museums and university art galleries in the United States, and a few acquired by large corporations or foundations. The most valuable piece in this exhibition was already hanging in the luxurious office of the president of an industrial company in Tokyo before the exhibition even opened.

These artworks will be delivered back to their respective owners via FedEx, along with a thank-you letter personally signed by the director of the S Art Museum, expressing gratitude for their strong support of the exhibition and welcoming them to Shanghai, where the museum will extend its hospitality, and so on.

The entire wrap-up process proceeded smoothly and in an orderly manner, with everything going according to plan.

The final step in the finishing touches is to place the fifty artworks in the museum's storage room and pack them according to their different destinations. FedEx trucks will pick them up at 10 a.m. the next day.

At 8:30 PM, the director's office on the fifth floor received a phone call. The assistant director answered. Initially, the assistant director thought he was being asked to come downstairs; the storage room was in the museum's basement, and as the assistant director, he had to sign the storage receipts. However, the content of the call was different from what he expected.

"Is this Assistant Liu? This is Xiao Luo."

Xiao Luo is a staff member responsible for the collection and disposal of exhibits at the art exhibition.

"Assistant Liu, you'd better come downstairs. We're on the second floor."

"What happened?"

"A label is missing here."

A label is missing? How is that possible?

These guys are so slow and indecisive, bothering me with the smallest things. How could there be a shortage of labels? All the labels are computer-printed and have corresponding numbers that match the numbers on the protective sleeve. Just identify the number, tear off a label, and stick the adhesive backing onto the protective sleeve.

This is such a simple thing, even a child can do it.

The assistant cursing under his breath, he reluctantly took the elevator downstairs.

When I answered the phone just now, he was chatting happily with a girl from Qingdao, Shandong in an online chat room. He was about to get her phone number, but now he had to log off. No wonder he was unhappy.

When the assistant curator arrived at the exhibition area on the second floor, two staff members were waiting for him. At their feet were three works of art, all of which had been placed in protective sleeves, and two of them had labels attached.

Oil painting No. 51: 773 Horror Series 13

Section 2: The Mona Lisa is the best example.

Xiao Luo pointed to the third artwork leaning against the wall and said, "That's the one; I can't find its label."

"How could it be missing? Could it be in someone else's hands?"

"No, we've used up all the tags."

The staff member, Xiaoqin, handed over a sticker. The label had been torn off from there, and now the sticker was empty, meaning that they had indeed run out of labels.

"Out of stock? How is that possible? Could they have put two labels on one piece of artwork?"

"We've checked everything, and there's no such situation."

The assistant curator looked at the two works next to him. The protective covers were numbered 014 and 038, respectively. The labels that had already been affixed also had the numbers 014 and 038. Below the numbers, the owner's name and the address to be delivered were written in Mandarin and English, respectively.

This situation must have occurred because one label was missed during the label-making process.

If that's the case, tonight's overtime will be significantly extended. I'll need to consult the catalog, find the owner and mailing address of the work, input them into the computer to recreate the label, and then paste it on.

Looks like I'm not going to get the Qingdao girl's phone number. Maybe she's already chatting with another guy. By the time I log back on, she'll probably be ignoring me...

The assistant curator sighed, walked over to the artwork that couldn't find a label, and glanced at it.

The artwork has been fitted with a protective sleeve, secured by four specially made hard corners on the top, bottom, left, and right sides. It is tightly wrapped in a layer of kraft paper and a layer of plastic, which can protect it from minor damage such as water splashes and impacts.

The assistant curator muttered something and glanced at the four hard corners. Each hard corner was stamped with the S Art Museum's official seal and the artwork's number, clearly marked as "051".

The curator's assistant felt his right eyelid twitch violently.

The exhibition features fifty works, numbered sequentially from 001 to 050. How did "051" come up?

The assistant curator examined it again. The artwork was quite large; he estimated it to be 100 centimeters long and 80 centimeters wide. Such a size should have been placed in Hall A or Hall B on the ground floor. Why was it on the second floor?

The assistant curator looked at Xiao Luo and Xiao Qin and asked, "Did you carry it up from downstairs?"

Xiao Luo and Xiao Qin looked at each other in bewilderment.

The final step in finishing up the work is to put all the works into the storage room, which is in the basement. If the work is on display on the ground floor, wouldn't it be redundant to move it to the second floor?

"It was always here." Xiao Luo pointed to a space on the wall of the C exhibition area in front of him.

The curator's assistant went up to take a look and discovered the second thing that was wrong.

Although there are hooks for hanging the painting and a lighting arrangement (a set of four spotlights), there is a missing information plaque that should indicate the painting's name, creation date, and dimensions.

Where's the nameplate?

"Nameplate..." Xiaoqin shook her head, "I didn't see it, it seems there never was."

Xiaoqin looked at her colleague Xiaoluo, who nodded vigorously.

Looking at the two clueless treasures, the curator's assistant was furious. Suddenly, a thought popped into his head: it was nothing, as the curator's assistant, he had the authority to do so.

"Open it."

Xiao Luo and Xiao Qin looked at each other again, wondering if they had nothing better to do than to open the protective sleeve after finally putting it in.

The assistant curator's tone left no room for argument, and he made a gesture, so Xiao Luo and Xiao Qin had no choice but to remove the four hard corners, peel off the first layer of plastic paper and the second layer of kraft paper, so that the artwork could be fully displayed.

This is a typical oil painting on canvas. The scene on the canvas is undoubtedly a dental clinic. The painting is divided in two; on the left is a dental chair, and in front of the chair, against the wall, is a desk with an LCD monitor. Above the desk hangs an IKEA plastic clock, with the hour and minute hands aligned, indicating noon.

On the right half of the painting, there is a large glass window with the blinds drawn up, and the branches and leaves of a plane tree can be vaguely seen outside the window.

The London plane tree is the most common street tree in Shanghai. It is said to have been introduced by French missionaries around 1890, when Shanghai opened as a treaty port. With its lush foliage and straight trunk, it is well-suited for planting along city streets. Because it is very suitable for Shanghai's distinct four seasons, it was quickly planted throughout the city. During the Cultural Revolution, when the "Four Olds" were destroyed, it is unclear whether the Red Guards of that time had developed an environmental awareness or simply wanted shade during the hot summer months; in any case, it was not considered one of the "Four Olds" and was not cut down.

This window cannot be opened; it's essentially a large pane of glass for natural light, used solely for viewing the scenery. The outward-protruding bay window increases the space on the windowsill, and its low, wide shape makes it a perfect seat.

A woman sat on the windowsill. She had short, shoulder-length hair, wore a light blue doctor's coat with a plastic badge on her chest that read "Attending Physician Zoe," light blue trousers, and white flat leather shoes. Her legs were slightly crossed. Her left hand rested on the windowsill, her slender fingers slightly apart, a ring on her middle finger. Her right hand was casually placed on her knee.

Although the person in the painting is facing the museum director's assistant, her face is not visible because she is wearing a light blue paper medical mask that covers her nose, mouth, and part of her face, leaving only her eyes exposed. Her eyes have a typical Eastern aesthetic; at first glance, they appear to be single eyelids, but upon closer inspection, they resemble double eyelids. Her face is oval-shaped, and her eyebrows are well-groomed. Judging solely from these eyes and eyebrows, the woman in the painting should be over thirty years old.

This is the assessment of the museum director's assistant. It's rare to find a dentist in their twenties, especially in the field.

The midday sun shone through the window, illuminating the windowsill and the back of "Attending Physician Zoe," whose eyes, with their oriental charm, were fixed on the assistant curator behind her mask.

The assistant curator found it incredible. In portraiture, the most expressive element of a person's inner world is their facial expression, and the Mona Lisa is the best example. That slightly upturned corner of her mouth, that ambiguous smile, has captivated the world.

From Chen Yifei to Mr. M's portrait paintings, all of them focus on depicting the facial expressions of the subjects, with the surrounding scenery being secondary. However, this painting boldly (or rather, irrationally) uses a mask to ruthlessly cover up the facial expressions that reveal the inner world of the subject, which is an absolute failure.

Oil painting No. 51: 773 Horror Series 13

Section 3: The phone call came at a really bad time.

Perhaps the artist intentionally left the viewer with room for imagination; this is called suspense.

The assistant curator turned his gaze away from the woman in the painting and walked along the edge of the canvas. The painting's title was inscribed in the lower left corner:

Zoe on the Windowsill

The painting only has a title, not an artist's signature. It's unclear whether the artist forgot to sign it or simply didn't have the habit of signing their name. In any case, it's an anonymous work.

As the assistant curator, he knows every single one of the fifty works in this exhibition by heart, and he'd bet that this painting isn't Mr. M's work.

Absolutely not.

The phone rang at 10:40 p.m., which was really bad timing.

Chen Ziqi, the director of the S Art Museum, was alone in his study, watching a DVD called "Taipei 9 to 5." He happened to see Xiao Ma enter room 512 of the Fu Wah Hotel and have a rendezvous with Summer Blue, played by Yu Jie. The two didn't even greet each other or look at each other's faces before getting into bed. Just as Director Chen was engrossed in watching the movie, the phone rang urgently.

Reluctantly, Director Chen pressed the stop button on the remote control and answered the phone. The call was from the director's assistant, who spent ten minutes explaining the situation and asking for instructions on how to handle it.

"Are none of Mr. M's fifty works missing or damaged?"

This was what Director Chen was concerned about. After receiving a positive reply, he casually instructed his assistant to put all of Mr. M's works into the storeroom. As for the anonymous painting, he said they could deal with it tomorrow. After hanging up the phone, Director Chen continued to enjoy "Taipei 9 to 5".

When Xiao Ma accidentally turned on the bedside lamp and saw that the naked SummerBlue was none other than Yu Jie, whom he knew, he flew into a rage and stormed off. At that moment, Director Chen, engrossed in the story, wished he were Xiao Ma. Just before leaving, he changed his mind and returned to bed to continue their sex act.

Taipei... Is that really how it is? Young people do nothing but sex, sleeping with this person today and that person tomorrow.

Director Chen once asked his youngest son, who worked for an American company, and he shrugged and said, "Actually, Shanghai is pretty much the same." The implication was that sex is rampant everywhere these days.

After watching the DVD, I was ready to have sex with my wife before going to bed.

Otherwise, why would I marry her?

Fifty-eight-year-old Curator Chen remarried last year. His wife is forty, in the prime of her life. Frankly, pursuing this woman didn't take much effort; on the contrary, getting rid of his first wife and ending their thirty-year marriage was a tremendous ordeal. Arguments, fights, cold wars, pleas, threats, fake suicide attempts, and even real suicide attempts—Curator Chen experienced it all. At the moment he signed the divorce papers, he almost burst into tears.

Divorce is truly a shortened lifespan!

As early as ten years ago, Director Chen began intentionally or unintentionally concealing his assets. As the director of the art museum, he possessed both professional knowledge and many friends in the field, thus accumulating a collection of valuable calligraphy and paintings by famous figures. His first wife, however, knew nothing about antiques and calligraphy. Although friends and relatives had hinted at it, and she had hired a lawyer to investigate, she ultimately found nothing. When dividing the assets, only real estate, cash, and stocks—things that were clearly visible on the books—could be divided.

Curator Chen rented a safe at the Bank of China, and his collection was preserved intact during this three-year divorce battle, which can be considered a stroke of luck amidst misfortune.

However, Mrs. Chen's second wife knew everything about the contents of the bank safe deposit box; she even had a list. Otherwise, she wouldn't have agreed to marry this man who was eighteen years her senior so readily.

When the assistant curator signed the inventory receipt, it marked the successful conclusion of Mr. M's solo art exhibition.

The staff are still busy hanging up the works for the permanent exhibition. The museum will open as usual tomorrow morning, and everything will return to normal, including the ticket prices.

When the assistant curator returned to the office, it was already 11 p.m. The computer monitor was still on, but the girl from Qingdao had long since left the chat room.