BRASILIA: The museum has received more than 200 pieces seized by police on suspicion of being used to launder money. Among them are creations by Salvador Dali and internationally acclaimed Brazilian contemporary artists such as Miguel Rio Branco.
Because the Carwash corruption investigation, involving more than a decade of bribes and kickbacks at state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro, is centred in Curitiba, the local museum became a beneficiary.
Authorities needed an institution with space and expertise to store all the seized art. Publicity from the show will help expand the museum’s audience, says CEO Juliana Vosnika.
“When people realise these are works from the investigation, that’s already intriguing,” she says. “It’s not nice to discover a case like this, but we have to think this has been positive for the museum.”
Designed by Brazil’s most famous architect, the museum looks like a gigantic eye perched on a rectangular yellow column, with a signature Niemeyer ramp snaking up to the entrance. A show is scheduled to open tomorrow featuring about 50 pieces received from the police, including paintings by Brazilian artists Emiliano Di Cavalcanti and Ibere Camargo.
In the Carwash scheme, so-called because money was allegedly funneled through a petrol station, Petrobras executives allegedly took bribes from a cartel of builders and shared the proceeds with politicians.
The case, involving at least $1.3bn in alleged graft and dozens of arrests, has transfixed Brazil and contributed to a decline in President Dilma Rousseff’s approval rating, which at 13% is the lowest of any Brazilian president in 15 years.
Prosecutors say the scandal has uncovered the use of art to launder money and disguise the trail of bribes.
On March 16, police seized 131 pieces, including a lithograph by Catalan artist Joan Miró, after entering the apartment of Renato Duque, Petrobras’s former head of engineering and services.
“It’s interesting that the population can enjoy” some of the fruits of the investigation, says Marcio Anselmo, one of the officers leading the probe.
While Duque valued his art collection at 80,000 reais in tax documents, one of his pieces was bought for more than double that price, Anselmo says. The police have asked about 20 galleries and art dealers to explain transactions involving seized artworks, he says.
On his cellphone, he has a picture of a work by neo-constructivist Amilcar de Castro. The piece, seized in the house of businessman Zwi Skornicki, has been valued at as much as 3-million reais, Anselmo says.
A spokeswoman for Skornicki, who is under investigation for involvement in alleged bribery, says that all his seized art was legally acquired and required taxes were paid.
The collection’s combined value doesn’t exceed 500,000 reais including a market value of 90,000 reais for the Amilcar de Castro piece, the spokeswoman says, adding that he denies any involvement in the scandal.
It’s possible that more artworks may be seized, Anselmo says. “These are people with very high acquisitive power, there’s always a chance more will be found. The advantage of owning these works is that their value is very difficult to estimate. You can declare them for 1,000 reais but in fact they are worth 1-million.”
At the museum, a visitor laments the bribery case, saying the exhibited art isn’t enough of a reward for the billions allegedly paid in kickbacks. “We need to see the positive side, but it doesn’t compensate at all,” says Alexandre Mariano. “You’re looking at art under sponsorship of the police.”
Still, the deterrent effect of the Carwash show is valuable, says Fausto De Sanctis, a São Paulo federal judge who has written a book on money laundering. “It’s important when the justice system seizes works and makes them accessible to the public. It tells everyone that the state values compliance with the law.”
