More About Rome… 

On Tuesday, I said that what I like best about Rome is its people, the Romans. And that’s true. But even without them, Rome would still be my favorite city in the world because of its churches.

Not the churches you’ll find in tour guides. These are random churches – nondescript on the outside – that you can step into on any given street in Rome. And inside, you are enveloped in sumptuous, astonishing beauty. Sculpture. Art. Tile. Metalwork. Mosaics.

Before I experienced the churches of Rome, I had a common condescension towards Baroque art. I considered it overdone. But in its presence, I don’t have that feeling. Yes, there is a lot of it. One thing on top of another. But that doesn’t make me want to denigrate it. It makes me want to engulf myself in it, time and again.

On days like these, when we have nothing particular to do, K and I stop at almost every church we pass… and each one is a marvel.

More About Tour Guides… and Tourists 

Whenever I feel comfortable doing so, I ask our tour guides about the differences they experience serving tourists from different countries. I’ve asked this question dozens of times. And the answers are almost always the same.

Americans are at the top of the list because they are usually upbeat, unpretentious, enthusiastic to learn, and generous in their tipping. Japanese are up there, too, and for the same reasons. But the Japanese are, for some, overly polite. They tend to be restrained in expressing their feelings, so it is difficult for the guides to know if they are happy with their guided experience.

Canadians have all the same attributes as their USA cousins, but they aren’t as generous with the tipping. Europeans, including Eastern Europeans, are somewhat difficult to please and don’t tip at all. And of them, the French are the worst. “They are never happy with anything,” Nicholas, our guide in Athens, told me.

“So are they the absolute worst?” I asked, suspecting he had saved that for last.

“No,” he said, shaking his head ruefully. “It’s the Chinese.”

Chinese tourists, according to my personal survey, have the reputation of being almost impossible to deal with. “They are loud, rude, and pushy,” said a guide I befriended some years ago. “And they don’t listen to you. They don’t care about the history or culture of the country they are seeing. They just want to take pictures and rush to the next tourist site.”

I know. These are crude generalizations. They are not true for every French or Chinese tourist. And there are plenty of Americans that behave terribly. But we make generalizations for a good reason. Actually, for two good reasons. Because they are, in general, true. And because they are, generally, amusing.

If you’d like to take a look at some slightly more scientific surveys about “best” and “worst” tourists, here are three articles that might entertain you. Click here… and here… and here.

What I Believe: About Tour Guides

In Greece, we had several very good tour guides, including a young Frenchman that had graduated from the Sorbonne in psychology. He went on to work as an art historian for the Louvre, spoke five languages, was conversant in American literature, could name the genus and species of any plant we asked about… and much more.

He showed us the obvious places and made them something more than obvious by telling us stories about them that were not in the standard guidebooks. And he brought us to a dozen places that were not even listed. One of them: a tiny, hidden Byzantine chapel outside of Athens that still had the old frescoes on the walls and was still used by locals for services. It had taken many years for them to feel comfortable with him… so much so that he was allowed to bring his clients to visit so long as they didn’t take photographs or tell anyone where they had been or what they had seen.

That’s what you want in a tour guide. That kind of knowledge. Broad and sometimes deep. With love for what he does and the respect of the community into which he brings tourists.

In Naxos, we had a completely different experience. This time, we had two guides. (And I’m being generous in calling them guides.) They took us first to what they called a vineyard, which was a random plot of land in the suburbs that held about 100 plants of a grape variety that they could not name. And then to here and there, the usual places, about which neither of them seemed to know a thing. It was a four-hour “tour” that felt like 40 hours. In speaking about it afterwards, we got to calling them Dumb and Dumber.

Faking It, Making It: The Changing World of Knock-offs

Cuban cigars are expensive. A Cohiba robusto will set you back more than $25. You can buy them for much less. And lots of people do. Trouble is, they are fake.

People like me who have been smoking Cohibas for many years will tell you that it’s easy to tell the difference between a genuine and a counterfeit. The printing on the label may be a bit off – the wrong size or the wrong shade of yellow. Sometimes the size of the label is irregular. Or the quality of the paper is inferior. If you can’t spot a fake by examining the external evidence, you should notice the difference when you light up. The fakes don’t have the flavor. Not nearly.

It used to be easy to spot ersatz Rolexes. Like Cohiba wrappers, their faces bore minor typographical irregularities. They weighed less than the genuine watches. And they stopped working within a year.

But that’s changing. The use of sophisticated computer technology by modern counterfeiters is resulting in a new class of fake watches. Ones that are so close to the original that watchmakers can’t tell the difference unless they put them under a microscope. And even then, some of them “pass.”

Digital technology is helping counterfeiters replicate all sorts of valuable merchandise, from vintage wines to expensive Italian suits to first-edition books to fine art. And it’s not just luxury goods. Every product known to man can be, and is being, perfectly copied.

During a recent trip to New York, a friend and I passed some Nigerians selling knock-off designer leather goods. We stopped to look.

“Boy, look at the quality of this stuff,” he said to me.

I examined the “Gucci” bag. The leather was supple. The stitching was neat. Everything looked perfect.

“Looks good,” I said.

“I hate it,” he moaned.

He lifted his bag to my face and said, “Do you know how much money I spent on this? And those guys are selling these bags for 50 bucks apiece.”

Later, at lunch, we talked about this trend toward quality counterfeiting.

“So do you wish you had bought one of those knock-offs?” I asked.

“I would never be happy with a fake,” he said. “Luxury manufacturers spend millions of dollars on designers, manufacturing, and advertising. They create more than good products. They create a mystique that has value beyond the quality of the materials or the workmanship. That mystique has a marketable value that belongs to the businesses that paid for it. When these guys sell knock-offs, they are selling something – prestige – that they haven’t paid for and don’t own. It’s stealing. Just like stealing money. It shouldn’t be tolerated.”

I could see the logic of his argument. And I could understand his ire. But I’m not sure whether the overall effect is good or bad. I’m guessing 90% of the people who buy merchandise from curbside vendors know exactly what they are doing. They are happy to spend $20 on a cheap Rolex because they can afford $20. And they are happy to wear that watch, hoping they can fake out all those who see it and think, “Wow! Pretty impressive!”

There is a social value to counterfeiting. It allows ordinary people to enjoy the status of luxury goods. And now that counterfeit luxury goods are close in quality as well as appearance, those same people can also enjoy the superior functioning of the originals.

“From a purely economic perspective,” I told my friend, “there is no reason ever to buy high-priced luxury goods.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, let me ask you this,” I said. “If you saw a gas station attendant wearing a top-of-the-line Rolex, what would you think?”

“That it was a knock-off.”

“And if you saw a very rich man – someone you knew to be rich – wearing a Rolex, would you assume it was genuine? Or would you suspect it was a fake?”

“I’d assume it was real.”

“In other words, you would always assume that the rich man’s belongings were genuine and the working man’s were fakes – even though you couldn’t tell the difference.”

“I guess that’s so,” he said.

“Which means it never pays to own the genuine thing. If you are rich, you can wear fakes and everyone will believe they are real. If you are not rich, people will assume you are wearing a fake even if it is real.”

I wasn’t being entirely serious, but I was getting at a fundamental problem with the status of luxury goods. In the old days, wealthy people were willing to pay a lot more for high-end items because they were better made and conveyed prestige. Nowadays, the knock-offs are nearly as well made and the omnipresence of luxury fakes makes all luxury goods suspect.

I can understand why the manufacturers of luxury goods want to put an end to all this counterfeiting. Yet you can’t deny that the increase in high-quality knock-offs is democratizing luxury. Millions of Americans who would otherwise have to settle for something less now have access to quality, albeit via stolen images.

In a perfect world, we would have both: ever-deflating costs for quality goods and a robust trade in luxury. And as counterfeiters continue to improve the quality of their fakes, I think that is exactly what we will get.

Driven by the illegal digital revolution in counterfeiting, high-quality products will become more and more available. Some of them will be fakes. And some will be from small manufacturers that can take advantage of the technology without feeling compelled to steal someone else’s brand.

Untitled, 1967, Armando Morales

Oil and collage on canvas
40.25 x 32 inches

I’m excited about our most recent acquisition. It’s the oil painting you see above, by Armando Morales. Along with Francisco Zúñiga and Carlos Mérida, he is among the best-known and most sought after Central American Modernists.

This brings our collection of his work to seven pieces. We have one forest scene, three nudes, and, with this, three abstracts. Currently, the forest paintings demand the highest prices – ranging from $100,000 to $1 million. The nudes are typically bought and sold in the $30,000 to $50,000 range. But the early abstractions, like this one, which Morales did in the 1960s when he was living and working in New York, lag behind in valuations.

Suzanne bought it for a good price from a distressed buyer. It has excellent provenance and is a good size at 40 x 32 inches. In adding this piece, I’m betting that the gap between the forests, the nudes, and the abstractions will narrow as Morales’s reputation in the international art community continues to climb and the art-buying public realizes how great these early abstractions are.

Suzanne and I are working on a sequel to Central American Modernism.It’s going to be even bigger than its predecessor because it covers more ground. The first one was on the modern period – roughly from the 1920s to the 1960s. The new book will cover contemporary artists from the 1970s to the present.

I’m excited about this project. It’s going to be important. It’s going to be fun. And it’s already giving me problems.

When we wrote Central American Modernism, we had a paucity of source materials to work with. Almost nothing in the US – even in the libraries of universities with international art studies programs. Nor was there a lot of material online. The problem was simple: Almost nobody back then cared about or thought about Central American art except Central Americans. And most of them were in Central America.

So, Suzanne and I spent about eight years and I spent more than a quarter-million dollars traveling to all six countries repeatedly. We met with museum directors, gallery owners, art critics and historians, collectors and artists – the few that were still alive. We threw parties and went to parties and ran contests and we even set up our own gallery in Nicaragua.

Like almost everything else I’ve done that I’m proud of, had I any idea what a long, demanding, and expensive slog that first book was going to be, I probably wouldn’t have done it. But I fooled myself into thinking I could do it relatively quickly and cheaply. And that got me going. Then, once I got moving, failing to finish it was not an option. To use a younger generation’s phrase, that’s how I roll. Ready. Fire. Aim.

Due to all the work we were putting into it, it began to feel like Suzanne and I were the two top experts in the world on Central American Modernism. So, when it came to making decisions about what should go in the book, I was comfortable making them.

But for the new book, I’ve enlisted help from some terrific people that know a lot more about Central American contemporary art than I do. Suzanne, of course. Also on our team is Alex Stato, who was once the director of LA’s Museum of Latin American Art.

Here’s the problem…

Both Suzanne and Alex are telling me that I have to expand my definition of art. It can’t be limited to paintings and drawings and sculptures, they say. Contemporary art must include conceptual and performance art.

I am having a tough time coming to grips with this. I understand their point. The book could be defensibly criticized for omitting these two important genres. And, in fairness, I’ve seen some conceptual/performance pieces that I thought were clever and even wonderful. But most of what I’ve seen has seemed to me to be more like a con job – a way for hucksters and their promoters to fool otherwise smart people into spending good money on silly things.

If you are not familiar with conceptual and performance art, take a look at “Good to Know,” below, and decide for yourself.

What I Believe: About Fine Art

When I think of fine art – the sort of art that the Met or the Prado or the Louvre would display – I think of paintings, watercolors, gouaches, etchings, and drawings. I think of sculpture, large and small, in clay or stone or bronze or steel. I would also include some photographs and videos.

My definition encompasses the full history of artistic expression. From prehistoric wall carvings to ancient jewelry to Greek and Roman (and other) classical paintings and carvings and sculpture to genre art of the 16th to 19th centuries to Romantic art, Neoclassical art, Impressionism, Expressionism, Abstract Expressionism, Cubism, action painting, COBRA art, naïve and outsider art.

What I don’t think of when I think of art is, for example, a woman painting her body with feces. Or a pile of stones or driftwood on the floor. Or a discarded piece of machinery on a pedestal. Or a dented car fender in a frame. Or a woman dressed in a pink leotard making animal noises from inside an iron cage.

In other words, when I think of art – the sort of art I am happy to call art – I want it to have two things. The first is what some art critics call plasticity – that it is a physical object made of something. And I want it to be something whose aesthetic value comes from its visual self – how it appears to my eyes.

When art is plastic and visible, it can be seen and judged according to its plastic and visible properties. It stands by itself, announcing what it is through itself. It doesn’t need an explanation. And I don’t want one. I want to judge it myself. I want to figure out whether it’s worth anything on my own.

The idea that anything can be a work of art is the core “insight” of conceptual art. The argument is that a urinal, by being placed in a museum, becomes something more than the thing it was before it was pulled off a bathroom wall. That, in seeing this utilitarian object in its new setting, the viewer gets to have a different and somehow more artistic experience of it.

I believe that is half true. When I encounter conceptual art in a museum, it does make me stop and think. But my thoughts are never remotely close to what the pamphlet or placard tells me the artist thinks I should think. My thoughts are, “What an utter waste of floor space.” And, “Seriously?”

If you want to be a conceptual artist, stick to the art form that caters to the brain’s capacity to understand and create ideas and concepts. In other words, become a writer. And if you want to be a performance artist, become a performer. Learn to dance or mime or juggle or tumble or act.

The borderline hysteria that the COVID pandemic provoked has finally exhausted itself. Americans – old and young, healthy or not, Trump lovers and Trump haters – have traded in their enervating views on the virus and returned to the habits of the pre-COVID days. They are gathering maskless at restaurants. Children are attending school. And the stadiums and concert halls of America are filling up again.

Among the most reluctant, however, are American workers. Many are going back to the factories and offices in which they used to spend 40+ hours a week. But many are not.

My business partners, whose employee counts range from several dozen to several thousand, have differing views on what should be done. Some believe their businesses would be better served with a complete return to the old days. They tell me that having workers in situ will improve productivity, accelerate the transfer of knowledge from seniors to newbies, and generally increase company morale.

Others, like me, have a less certain perspective. We believe there is some value in having one’s employees in the same space some of the time. But we also think there are good reasons to believe that productivity is as good or better with so much of the work being done remotely. And we can’t help figuring how much money we can save on rent.

Employees have their own points of view. Some long to be away from whatever it is that happens at home during their working hours and look forward to the refuge of an orderly workplace and collegial community. But the vast majority, according to the surveys I’ve read, would like a future that gives them the liberty to come and go as they wish.

At a recent board meeting with my main client, we decided to avoid making a cross-company mandate, and passed along the decision to the individual heads of each of the operating groups. Most of them are settling for policies of partial return. At least one, though, is looking to get everyone back full-time. He’s running into resistance because many of his employees would rather have the freedom to decide how many days they should spend in the office. And some, including some very valuable employees, are simply refusing to come back at all.

The arguments he is hearing from his employees that don’t wish to return are what you would expect. “I get more done at home.” And, “I can work more hours now because I don’t have to waste an hour every day commuting.”

A group of Apple employees are resisting the company’s back-to-the-office mandates by taking an entirely different approach. You will be amused to discover their argument in News & Views, below.

Actors That Make the Difference 

Gene Hackman and Al Pacino are great actors. Both have been amazingly good in so many roles over the years.

But Hackman has something that Pacino doesn’t have. Some ability – some something – to make every movie he stars in work.

Ask yourself: Have you ever seen a Gene Hackman movie that didn’t work? From The French Connection to The Conversation to Hoosiers to Mississippi Burning to The Unforgiven to Enemy of the State to The Replacements to Crimson Tide to The Firm to The Royal Tenenbaums to The Birdcage to Young Frankenstein to Uncommon Valor to Bonnie and Clyde?

Al Pacino was fantastic in The Godfather (I and II and III), Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, Donnie Brasco, and Once Upon a Time in America. And all those movies were fantastic, too. He was good in Sea of Love and sort of good in Scarface and even Frankie and Johnny. He overdid it a bit in Scent of a Woman. But then there were all the others: Cruising, Author! Author!, The Local Stigmatic, Dick Tracy, Two Bits, City Hall, Chinese Coffee, S1m0ne, etc.

Maybe Hackman is simply better at picking movies. But I think there’s more at play. I believe he has a kind of thespian charisma that is so strong it makes bad scripts sound good and brings out the best in the actors he plays against.

Anthony Hopkins is another actor that comes to mind when I think of that sort of charisma. He was amazing in the “Hannibal” movies. His performance was key to making The Remains of the Day so successful. Likewise with Meet JoeBlack and, most recently, The Father. But I’m not sure about his movies that I haven’t seen – like The Edge, The Rite, or Fracture. Did they work? Did he make them work?

I thought I’d waste some of my time today (and some of yours when you read this) contemplating which of the several dozen “really good actors” I’ve listed below have that magic ability to make the movies they star in work. Check it out. Tell me what you think.

MALE ACTORS 

I think these actors have it: 

Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr., Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, and Humphrey Bogart

And maybe these… 

Sean Penn, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Kevin Spacey, Will Smith, Lawrence Olivier, Leonardo DiCaprio, Morgan Freeman, Christian Bale, Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Pitt, Sean Connery, Don Cheadle, and Mel Gibson

But probably not these…

Al Pacino, Liam Neeson, Robin Williams, Hugh Jackman, Daniel Day-Lewis, Johnny Depp, Peter O’Toole, Henry Fonda, Bruce Willis, Michael Caine, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, and Nicholas Cage

FEMALE ACTORS 

I think these actresses have it:

Frances McDormand, Audrey Hepburn, Katharine Hepburn, Diane Keaton, Bette Davis, Jennifer Lawrence, Ingrid Bergman, and Maggie Smith

And maybe these… 

Helen Mirren, Faye Dunaway, Cate Blanchett, Elizabeth Taylor, Meryl Streep, Marilyn Monroe, Judi Dench, Jodie Foster, Glenn Close, Emma Stone, Scarlett Johansson, Jane Fonda, Charlize Theron, Vivien Leigh, Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange, Barbara Stanwyck, and Olivia de Havilland

But probably not these… 

Hillary Swank, Penelope Cruz, Ellen Burstyn, Susan Sarandon, Sandra Bulllock, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Pfeiffer, Reese Witherspoon, Shirley MacLaine, Sally Field, Nicole Kidman, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Kate Winslet, Julianne Moore, Amy Adams, Viola Davis, and Sigourney Weaver

BUT WAIT. THERE’S MORE! 

Then there are the character actors that cannot save the movies they have a role in, but bring to life every scene they are in. Like…

Tom Waits, Peter Lorre, Eli Wallach, Thelma Ritter, Martin Balsam, Quentin Tarantino, J.K. Simmons, Steve Buscemi, Charles Coburn, Harry Dean Stanton, Vincent Schiavelli, Tilda Swinton, Walton Goggins, Judy Greer, and Chris Cooper

What do you think? Who did I miss? Where am I wrong?