#1176 – The Expat Files: Art, Investment, and the Realities of the Latin American Art Scene

Automatically transcribed from the original recording; names and wording may contain errors.

[00:00] All right, today let's discuss something I don't think I've spoken about at all in the last 12 years of this podcast. Let's talk about art, artwork, art displays, art shows, and the unrealistic expectations gringo's expats and tourists have, thinking and hoping that someday the artwork they buy in a gallery in Latin America somewhere or on the street is actually going to be worth some money or appreciate in value over the years. I'm telling you right now, it won't. So pay attention for the next 20 minutes or so. If you're a consummate souvenir hunter or you want to outfit your house or apartment with some Latin American works of art, this could save you a lot of grief. And dough. Tip number one, no matter what you buy, even if the local gallery owners are telling you that so and so is an upcoming artist, then his stuff's going to be worth, oh, so much

[00:47] more dough in the near future. His stuff's catching on. It's going to go international. Sounds great. Gets you all wound up, especially when you hear it from a so-called art lover. Everybody wants to get in on the ground floor. We get so few opportunities in life to do that, right? You know what they call that, don't you? FOMO, fear of missing out. Man, I've heard that story so many times. You know how many times it's come true? About zero. Now, you might be legitimately asking right now, what does Johnny Mueller know about art? He's just a blabbering podcast guy. Not a complete idiot. He's got an engineering and biomedical background. But what does that have to do with knowing anything about art? Why should we listen to him? What does he know? Well, first off, throughout my post-graduate university years, back in Chi-town, Chicago, my girlfriend was a real artist, yep, with her own private studio, producing works of

[01:36] art for sale day in and day out. In fact, every weekend during those Chicago summers, we'd go to all kinds of art galleries and fairs. She'd have art openings in cities all around the Midwest. She had her own kills for glazing pottery, her own spinning wheel and loom for weaving 3D wall hangings, oxyacetylene welder for metal sculptures, a couple of kills and a centrifugal casting machine for the lost wax jewelry process. She was extremely artistic, could do anything. But she mostly did pen and ink landscapes and portraits. She had her stuff in upscale restaurants, galleries, and had her own booth at weekend art fairs. And over the years, by all hismosis, I learned lots of things about art, in what you might call the corrupt state of the art world. In fact, back then, I dabbled quite a bit in it myself. I made all the frames from scratch, cut and beveled all the glass and the mats for all

[02:24] her gallery and art fair stuff. She taught me how to do leaded and copper foil stained glass work. I sold a few too. I could have kept going, but I got bored with it. I turned down a few commissions too, because it just seemed like real work. When you're doing art, you're supposed to like what you're doing, right? But that's not what we're talking about here. Just thought I'd lay a little background on you there, so that what I'm about to say doesn't sound like it's coming from a complete art dunce. As most engineers and techies are, in fact, most, if not all of the engineer and techy guys I know, including myself, before I met her, we absolutely have the worst taste in art you can imagine. Ninety nine percent of us don't even know how to match our clothes, much less decorate or furnish our apartments without making casual visitors wince. In fact, most of my engineering and tech friends who have made it, they've

[03:10] become successes. They've done it despite not having a clue about fashion or taste. If they look like they have it, it's not of their doing. It's the strong influence of a girlfriend or wife. In my early twenties, that's exactly how I was too, until I had that artist girlfriend, which lasted a couple of years. So small bits did eventually stick. She did teach me a bit about clothes and wardrobe matching. Enough anyway, so that when I go out, I don't look like I'm going to a barn day and said, Dollywood. Now, I'm not saying I have a flair for art. I really don't, though I can put on a good front. In my years with her, she taught me what not to do. For example, she told me when decorating an apartment, if you don't know what you're doing, to play it safe, never go with more than three colors. That is, when it comes to the big stuff, walls, furniture, rugs, ceilings.

[03:55] And make sure at least one of those colors, maybe two, is gray, black or white. And she also beat it into me that once you've made some dough, if you're smart enough to know you don't have very good taste, there are a couple of things you could do about it so you don't look the fool. Now, of course, most people who have bad taste don't know it. The other thing is that most people with money think they have good taste, which is pure BS too. I mean, look at Elvis, look at every rapper that ever lived. I rest my case. Anyway, my ex-girlfriend, the artist, she told me many times because she knew I wasn't born with good taste. She said, Johnny, when you're in a clothing store, for example, just don't pull things off the hangers and racks and start trying them on. She said, get a young lady or better yet, a gay guy to wait on you. Or better yet, check out the window mannequin displays.

[04:42] Those are tastefully arranged and designed by people who know what they're doing. Then people like you, meaning me and engineering techy types with an underdeveloped sense of fashion just can't go wrong. You buy the whole outfit head to toe. That means shoes, socks, and boxers too. It's a no brainer, right? But how many people actually do that? I've done it. Same thing goes when it comes to furniture and outfitting your house or apartment. If you want your company to really think you know what you're doing, you got class, you got style, you walk into a furniture store that's got whole rooms outfitted from pictures on the wall to rugs, lamps, chairs, ashtrays, and end tables. And you buy that whole room lock, stock, and barrel as is. Every knick-knack and picture too. You just can't go wrong by snapping up the whole thing.

[05:29] Because again, those whole room displays have been set up by interior design specialists who know what they're doing. Of course, you can't outfit yourself for your living quarters like that if you haven't got any dough. But eventually, for every engineer and techie type, soon enough, the dough starts rolling in. I know, I know what you're thinking. Johnny's really gone off the rails here. What's he talking about? That's got absolutely nothing to do with Latin America, right? Well, I'm getting there. The fact is, having a real artist as a girlfriend for a couple of years, man, I picked up a lot of pointers, what not to do mostly, and I learned a lot about the art world and its devious inner workings and dark underbelly. For example, my girlfriend who had lots of art shows and she was also a high school art teacher, which frustrated the hell out of her because she thought

[06:15] being a high school art teacher was just going to be temporary till the art career started paying off. But it didn't work as talented as she was, and she was very talented. She could never quite make enough money. She could never price her artwork over $150 or $200. And sometimes, a couple of weeks or a month or even more would go by without an art show or an art fair. Here's the rub. Meanwhile, her girlfriend, who was less talented but also went to the art shows and such, she could barely sell two or three pieces a weekend for $100 a pop too. All right, now here comes the part where life ain't fair. She had a side gig as a Playboy bunny at the Lake Geneva Playboy Resort. And through that gig and talking to customers, she hooked up with an older guy who was a fairly famous artist.

[07:01] He was sort of nationally known and would get $5,000 a pop for his work. You know, every artist has a theme, and his was modern Southwestern cowboy art, if you can believe that. But there was a market for it. He did really well. So he hooked up with her, and she moved in with him. He started sponsoring shows for her and displaying her work at his galleries. And suddenly, she's making $500, $1,000, $2,000, and then up to $5,000 a painting herself. So that's how she entered the rarefied hoity-toity backstabbing world of big money, or at least very sustainable money, modern art. So eventually, my girlfriend and her fell out an envy and jealousy thing, as you might imagine. That's how I learned that the art world at the collector's level, where people buy art for speculation

[07:48] based on name recognition and what's popular or faddish at the time, to me, it seemed like it worked out to about 10% talent, 50% marketing and advertising, and 40% luck, all of which could be superseded by the casting couch. It's a funny thing. 99% of all the so-called weekend warriors who do the weekend art shows and art festivals throughout the US, they have a day job. They have to. Of course, they all started out loving art, having a talent, people telling them they were good, even great. Many, if not most of them, taking art classes all through school, having art degrees, sometimes even attending prestigious art schools, all in the hope of making a living at it. But they just can't, so they have a day job. And the occasional gallery opening and summer art fair circuit, that doesn't pay the bills

[08:34] so it ends up being, at best, a nice little hobby. And maybe for them, that's enough, it has to be. It's a lot like learning a musical instrument and playing in a band. 99% of people who start out on that route have high hopes for making a living at that too, but they never do. So you either end up living in mommy's basement or you get a day job and move out. Now, that's quite a different setup as compared to the art world and buying and selling art here in Latin America. There are tens of thousands of local artists making a living, selling their artwork to gringos. That is their day job. The thing is, you know, when the average green gringo or tourist comes down to Latin America, he almost always hits the tourist trail like Costa Rica, Cancun, whatever. It's the first toe in the water. And what do you see as soon as you get off the plane? Locally made artwork and trinkets everywhere.

[09:20] Even before you pick up your luggage, you've passed 50 little kiosks in the airport selling all kinds of artwork, stuff that looks really cool too. The other half, pure junk. Every tourist has a list of people he or she has to buy souvenirs for, right? And there's a fine line, you know, between what's art, what's a souvenir, and what's pure junk. Because most of that stuff you buy, when you get it home, when you're sitting down in your living room and trying to place the thing, suddenly you realize it really doesn't match at all and looks tacky. It gets demoted to the basement and the next time you move, it ends up at your yard sale. And when you mark it down to a buck, still no one buys it. Unless, of course, you happen to be an engineer or a techie who doesn't have a girlfriend. Then it stays in the living room on the shelf right below the dayglow plastic millennium Falcon model

[10:06] wedged between the predator mask and the photo of Captain Kirk. Yes, it's true, most of us Texan nerds go through life clueless about fashion and taste. Anyway, as soon as you get off the plane, it's artsy fartsy stuff and trinkets everywhere. As far as the trinkets, a lot of that stuff, the figurines, the glass, the pottery is made in China and you might not find that out till you get it home and examine it closely. What a letdown. But most specifically, let's talk about paintings and drawings, because they're everywhere. In fact, it didn't take me long to figure out that in every tourist area, the gringo and expat crowd living there, a great percentage of them were closet artists up in the States and our would-be artists once they get to the Latin America. And with all that time on their hands, they start organizing. Oddly enough, they create their own sort of snobbish artists colonies themselves,

[10:52] where you find any gringo tourist trail, you'll find permanent art galleries with organized dress-up art gallery openings every couple of weeks. You know the drill, cheap champagne, sparkling wine and finger food with the vast majority of artwork on display done by gringo expats themselves. And oddly enough, this stuff ain't cheap. It's sort of like this. You got a bunch of Americans up in the States, people with good day jobs who tinker around with art as a hobby. Maybe they have a little art room or drawing room in the house, set up a needle on the sun porch in good weather, hit the local art fairs during the summer, sell a few pieces here and there, and then they hit 50 or so, they retire, move to Latin America, where they've got all the spare time, the sun, the flora, the fauna, the rivers, the mountains, the volcanoes,

[11:39] the locals, the indigenous people, all of that is great artistic inspiration. So they settle in and start producing all this artwork. So is it any good? A lot of it is, and it's in the eye of the beholder, of course, but it definitely ain't worth what they're charging for it. That's the gripe I have. Why buy their crap when you've got some fantastic street artists that are really good with their little easels along the walkway, right on the street, trying to earn enough money just to eat, charging maybe 20 or 30 bucks for a drawing or a painting. That's really pretty cool. Meanwhile, could be just a half black down, there is a glitzy permanent gallery or two, and when you walk in, you see some nice pieces of art too, done by local gringos and expats, both American and European, in the $300 to $1,500 range.

[12:25] To me, it's absolutely ridiculous. Suddenly, these people who are backyard artists up in Milwaukee and Cleveland, who couldn't sell a painting a month for 150 bucks at an art fair, they come down, settle in on the gringo tourist trail, meet other like-minded, frustrated backyard artists, create an artist's society or join an existing one, and suddenly, you're a real artist, at least you think you are. Now, I've been to a lot of these gringo art openings at permanent galleries, and I pretty much quit going to them, same old, same old. And I've met some pretentious, stuck up artists there too. The thing is, I don't think they were like that when they lived up in the States. They got that way by hanging around with other like-minded, would-be artists, who like them, have some money, have some retirement income. So they can shove their paintings in the gallery,

[13:11] put a price of five or 600 bucks on them, and not sell a single one, yeah, that's right. But the point is, they got real gallery time. No more getting stuck next to the hot dog stand at the Starving Art Fair in Chicago. I've been to art openings where there've been 30, 40, 50, 60 pieces on display, and lots of people coming through, all dressed up like it's a big event. And when the show's over, they've sold a total of maybe one or two paintings. Yes, I'm serious, a lot of people come dress to the nines. These are big expat events. Oh, and it's not all long-term expat gringos either. You know who else gets invited and they always come? The wealthy Latino gringo wannabes in the area. Well, their wives come anyway, dressed in the nines and dangle and all that wheel gold jewelry too. But it's not just any and all wealthy Latinos in the area, it's wealthy Latinos who speak English.

[13:58] The ones that have been back and forth to the stays, chopping in my jammy, maybe send their kids to school, they're extreme gringo wannabes. And they're as plastic as can be too. Often double parking in front of the joint, big black SUV with a bodyguard, gotta make a splash, gotta impress. Meanwhile, as mentioned before, right on the corner, there are street artists set up here and there, people with real talent selling their stuff for 10 or 20 bucks just to eat. And the dark underbelly of this story is that these long-term gringo expat gallery types, they look down on those street artists. They're not quite equal to the stature they have and never will be. They never get a chance to display their art or have a show in one of those gringo expat galleries. Kind of sad really, but that's what you see all over the place on the gringo tourist trail.

[14:45] Now, when you're way off the gringo tourist trail, and I'm not talking about the boonies because when you're in the boonies and off the tourist trail, there are not many galleries or people on the street doing artwork because there's no gringos filing through to buy the stuff. However, off the gringo trail in a fairly big town or city, they'll always have a formal gallery or two where some of the local, more popular, real artists will display their stuff, but they too rarely make a decent living at it. They have day jobs. So bottom line by all means, if you're just coming down as a tourist, and of course if you've rented an apartment, you'll have to furnish it, my advice is to patronize the little artists on the street. Skip buying anything at those permanent galleries. Tip number two, don't ever make the mistake of buying some artwork in Latin America and thinking it's an investment, it's not. Sure, there's always a chance a miracle will happen and one of the local artists will get discovered

[15:31] by some visiting art critic. It happens though, he gets written up in some social media time, and suddenly he's in demand for a minute, but that's about as likely as winning the lottery. Please, just buy art because you like it, not because you think it's an investment, it's gonna go up because if that's what you're thinking or have been led to believe, you're better off taking the dough and dropping it in a casino. But believe me, when you're in one of those galleries, you'll hear the promoters, the dealers and the patrons talking about how this or that new artist is the next big thing. Don't fall for it. I mean really, all you have to do is go to any estate, rummage or yard sale and you'll see countless pictures and drawings people thought were worth the price they paid. Now they're trying to sell for half or a tenth of their value and they can't get rid of them at any price. So buy this stuff because you like it for you.

[16:17] Tip number three, don't buy artwork as a gift for someone else because you think it's gonna look good in their place. Big mistake. I'm seeing how so many gringles and expats buy local artwork, go back to the states and gift it to friends and relatives. Never push your tastes on other people. We'll be thankful, polite and diplomatic about it, but since you got it on your vacation, it means nothing to them. Where do you think it's gonna end up? Probably in the attic with the ab cruncher and the vegematic or the dumpster. Tip number four, if you noticed, practically every tourist trail, bar and restaurant you walk into has artwork on the walls with price tags on them. That seems to be a popular trend for artists who may have actually gone to art school or have a useless university art degree. They get first dibs on the restaurant walls.

[17:03] I'm talking about local Latinos who've gone through the structured artist route. Not the little guys with easels on the streets who never took an art class in their lives. You'll likely never see the work of a street artist no matter how talented, displayed in a restaurant. Again, it's all about who you know and oftentimes a restaurant owner has a son, daughter or family member who's gone the college route, has a useless art degree. You'll find they've got their artwork up because of connections, not talent. More often than not, you'll even find art pieces for sale in the bathroom. I remember one time in Costa Rica taking a whiz and staring at a $300 painting of an old guy in an ox cart at the base of a gushing waterfall. For a moment, I thought it was a subliminal suggestion for the pea shy. Then I thought, no way. Latino restaurant owners aren't that sophisticated. Bottom line, never buy a painting

[17:50] that you see in a restaurant because almost certainly you could take a walk down the street and buy a similar one for a half to a tenth of the cost. Because you see, if you travel a lot, there's one thing you'll notice. When you get to any particular town or city, whether it's on or off the Gregor Taurus Trail, the talent there seem to produce artwork that's quite similar. For example, in one town, the artists might be big on little white ceramic churches. Another, volcanoes and waterfalls. Another, maybe winding cobblestone roads and street fountains. In yet another, they might be big on shriveled old ladies in wide brimmed hats or doorways and windows with flowers. You get the picture. Just remember, the people who display their art in restaurants, even nice restaurants, it's not because they're famous. It's all about who you know and who you're related to.

[18:36] And if you're first in, could be the artist was first to ask when the restaurant opened. Then the owner doesn't have to spend any of his own dough filling the empty spaces. I repeat, buy artwork because you like it and it makes you feel good. Don't think of it as an investment. It's not. By the way, I'm sure by now you've heard of these things called NFTs. That's digital artwork that's on the blockchain. You're probably wondering about that. Well, you know, I've been into cryptocurrency for 10 years now and being an old guy in the space, I do have an opinion about those things. I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Have you seen that crappy digital artwork that goes for mega bucks? Like for example, that monkey that sold for a million bucks. It looks like it was drawn by a four year old. There's a whole big market of fools out there buying NFTs, non fungible tokens.

[19:23] I saw a digital rock. Yep, rock, R-O-C-K. Go for over a million bucks. Did you see that? Seems to me there's a lot of young crypto idiot millionaires out there who buy crazy, stupid stuff. People with F-U money, who brag about buying two or three lambos, you know, Lamborghinis. Even having one Lamborghini is a stupid mistake. The new ones, even under warranty, every month they're in the shop. To me anyway, the only good thing that has come out of that NFT thing is that you can put artwork on the blockchain now. You know what that means, don't you? Solves a huge problem. There've always been lots of forgeries and counterfeits out there. When you buy a piece, a well-known art piece with a history, it comes with a bill of sale from a previous owner, certificate of authenticity, from independent experts, et cetera, et cetera. But all that can be expertly forged.

[20:09] In fact, you may have heard of the artist Vermeer. Every one of the few paintings he did goes for over a million bucks. And during World War II, Gerring, you know, Hermann Gerring, went around Europe and collected paintings from countries Hitler invaded. Galleries, mansions, and private collections were looted by the Nazis and hidden and stashed all around Europe. So after the war, a couple of missing Vermeers showed up. Then they were brought up by big art museums in Europe for millions. We know now with modern technology, they were forgeries. In fact, some of the biggest classical art collectors in the world don't want their stuff analyzed. They're afraid there might be forgeries in their own collections, which would gut their value. In fact, one of the best books I've read in a long, long time is about a guy who forged Vermeers and made millions for himself. Same guy who pulled the wool

[20:54] over Hermann Gerring's eyes in World War II. He never got caught, but years later turned himself in. The book is entitled, I Was Vermeer. If you want a copy, I'll give you one. Send me an email, theexpertfiles.gmail.com. You will be amazed, you won't believe it. So then, what does this have to do with anything? Well, remember I said that now those NFTs are on the blockchain. That means you can put any piece of art, even an old classic, a masterwork like a da Vinci or a Botticelli, Vermeer van Gogh on the blockchain, and record its complete history right there, available for everyone to see at any time, including previous owners, what they paid for it, authentication details, and you can't change the blockchain. That means an existing piece of artwork could never be falsified. Anyone could look it up on the blockchain and see its entire immutable history.

[21:42] And that's a really good thing. It'll kill the forgery market. All right, one last thing about artwork in Latin America. You know, there are lots of age-old country estates throughout Latin America. Every big pineapple, cocoa, coffee, mango, whatever, plantation has a manor house. You know, some of them built in the colonial era with 12 bedrooms, two, even three kitchens, horse stables, et cetera. I've been in a few of those manor houses and they've all got age-old classic antique paintings all over the place. Some of them two and 300 years old, just like you see in period movies. Guys in armor on the battlefield, hunting hounds, dukes, counts, royalty. And of course, for every painting like that, there is a religious theme too. Now, although most of those country manners are in disrepair, they're really ragged around the edges

[22:27] because it costs so much to restore them and keep them going. So then what's going on with those ancient paintings? Anything that's a couple hundred years old has a market. From what I understand is if you could buy one of those pieces, then I'm sure most of them are for sale because the owners, or I should say the owners' kids or grandkids or great grandkids are not in the chips anymore. Anyway, from what I understand is sometimes that stuff goes up for sale individually. Problem is, it's very, very difficult to get that kind of stuff out of the country. There's no use buying it unless you're gonna stay put because you see almost all Latin countries and all countries in general have passed patrimony laws that prohibit anyone from exporting articles of historic value, including art. So yes, you could buy a portrait of a conquistador, maybe even get what you might consider a good deal on it. If you're thinking about making some money by reselling it in Europe or the States,

[23:14] you probably should forget about it because you will be breaking the law. Nor do you wanna take the canvas out of the frame and roll it up. Those things are very fragile and the paint, if you flex the canvas, will crumble. The same thing goes for real Aztec, Inca, and Mayan artifacts. Oh, they're around all right. I see them for sale all over the place. You longtime listeners have heard me mention that as people remodel and start building new subdivisions, they're often uncovering old Mayan, Incan, and Aztec towns, cities, and burial sites. In fact, I used to go out with this girl whose parents lived away in the boonies. They invited me for a Sunday dinner. Yep, that's right. Gringo on display this Sunday at Mama's house in Chichi Castanango. Anyway, in a living room, they had a couple of shelving units with 10 or 12 terracotta pieces of pottery that had lots of little inscriptions on them. Now, of course, when you come to Central America,

[24:01] especially, you see that kind of stuff for sale in the airports on the streets, all of it nice and new without a single chip or bruise. It's all reproductions of that pre-Columbian stuff you'll find in local museums. 99.9% of the stuff you see being sold in the airports and on the streets is fake, it has to be. There's laws against even owning the stuff. Of course, the thieves and scammers are at it all the time. Generally, all it takes is sticking a real piece in with a lot of fakes. Meanwhile, back at the girlfriend's parents' house, you could tell the stuff they had in the shelf was real. It was chipped, fragile, and delicate, discolored by age, humidity, and erosion. And sure enough, when I asked about that stuff, they told me they came upon it when digging the footings for the house. I've heard that story many times, that's why. If you visit someone who has a house out in the boonies,

[24:47] don't be surprised if you spot one or two Aztec gods or Mayan warriors on the dining room mantle. You can bet they're real too because the average Latin American family is not gonna buy fake trinkets meant for tourists. Even if they had extra spending though, which they don't. They certainly wouldn't spend a dime for something like that. Oh, and here's one last thing that comes after the last one last thing. If you read the local papers in Spanish, the online papers anyway, you'll see every so often a church or a cathedral out in the boonies has been burgled. Not so much in the big city because they have guards and cameras and stuff, but on the boonies, they're short of money and manpower. So of course, thieves go after small statues and artifacts and the old, often very old paintings as well of popes and saints and various incarnations of Jesus

[25:34] and everyone else hanging on those walls. Here's what you didn't know and I didn't either until recently. Although there's a big market for ancient, religious, and other historic artifacts, that market of course is in the first world. As mentioned, it's getting tougher and tougher to smuggle the paintings out of the country. What smugglers have discovered though, there is also a gigantic market for those old carved silver, gold leaf, and even plain wooden frames. Those things were meticulously done and works of art in themselves too. So now we're finding out that lots of times those paintings will get stolen, they'll ditch the painting, disassemble and ornate frame and walk it, drive it or fly it right over the border and nobody knows the difference. And those things when reassembled correctly can go for a thousand, two thousand, five, or even $10,000 with little chance of getting caught.

[26:22] But even so, don't try it yourself. Let's try not to tarnish that gringo advantage. All right, we're near the end of the show now. Once again, I'd like to remind you of my upcoming Expat Insider Seminar for November, 2022. Get all the info and sign up details at expatplanb.com. And remember, if you sign up by September 15th, that's about two weeks from when this show first airs. You'll get in on the early bird discount, save $500 off the regular price. Oh, and remember, all repeat offenders get a $1,000 price break. Check it out at expatplanb.com.