I pay eight hundred yuan to a man who knows how to talk to people who buy. That is the rate for an opening, seven in the evening to ten, in an envelope, the same night. Lukas Voss has done fourteen of them for me in two years.
He is worth it. He knows three things about every canvas and he says them in the right order: the date, the studio, the detail you don't see unless somebody shows it to you. Australians and Germans answer him as they would a museum curator. The Chinese less so; they look at the price first, which is healthier.
My gallery is on Wukang Road, at the back of a courtyard, with no sign. I have been in Shanghai fourteen years, the gallery nine. Before that I sold parquet flooring, and before that I translated contracts. I mention it so that nobody gets ideas about me.
I have never asked him questions. You don't ask questions of someone you pay.