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Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brazil. Show all posts

January 9, 2023

Monday, January 09, 2023 - ,, No comments

When history repeats itself, and not in a good way. Political insurrection 2.0 causes extensive damage to Brazil's cultural and political patrimony.

While most in the world can remember the fracturing of politics in the United States on January 6, 2021 following the defeat of then-U.S. President Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election, this week made way for a grim copycat incident, equally violent in nature in the Capital of Brazil this week. 

During the more than three hour long incident on Sunday, supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, protesting the October 30, 2022 runoff vote for the 2022 Brazilian general election which replaced the former president with Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, swarmed over the Praça dos Três Poderes (Square of the Three Powers).  Protesters then invaded and damaged the Palácio do Planalto (Presidential Palace), which is the seat of government, where the President of the Republic meets with advisors and visitors.  

The riots quickly spread to the seat of the Supremo Tribunal Federal, Brazil's Supreme Court and the highest authority of the judicial power as well as to the buildings of the Congresso Nacional do Brasil, Brazil's Congress which houses the legislative body of Brazil's federal government.  There some protesters attempted to set the carpet on fire, which flooded rooms in the building when the fire suppression systems activated.  

Protesters swarming the Congresso Nacional do Brasil

Video provided by Twitter account @ALendaDePassos documents extensive damages to the Great Hall of the Superior Federal Court (STF). A largely ceremonial room, it was decorated with furniture from the 19th century, and housed works of art over 100 years old, as well as gifts given to the Brazilian Government by more than 20 countries. 

In another area, Paulo Pimenta, chief minister of the Social Communication Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, walked reporters through the destruction caused by the insurrection to his office where videos recorded vandalism to the tables, chairs, documents, printers, computers, televisions and artwork.  Later, on his Twitter account Pimenta called the invasion a coup, and urged Brazilians to unite against domestic terrorism. 

As depicted in the photo below, the Sala de Armas do GSI at the Palácio do Planalto was also ransacked, with protesters even attempting to burn chairs in the outer control room.  In a second video released by Pimenta he shows empty weapon boxes which which could point to theft of arms the GSI's usually uses to maintain building security. 

More images of damages have been uploaded to Brazilian news site Globo.

The total historic assets damaged in Sunday's riot are yet to be documented and ARCA will update this blog post as further details emerge. 


December 11, 2019

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - , No comments

2nd Brazilian Conference on Law & Art


Date:  20-22 May 2020
Event: The Second Brazilian Conference on Law & Art 
Location:  João Pessoa, Brazil 

In its second edition, the biennial (#2cbda) conference will gather the legal community that intervenes in the Brazilian art and cultural heritage sectors in order to debate with important international specialists. 

The general theme of the 2020 edition will be “50th Anniversary of the 1970 UNESCO Convention and 25th Anniversary of the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention”.

This event will cover topics such as copyright; legal iconography; due diligence; concept of artist and artwork; protection of archaeological and underwater cultural heritages; museum law; cooperation, restitution and repatriation of cultural property; climate change, sea level rise and cultural heritage; international arbitration; police cooperation; the role of trusts and freeports in cultural heritage law; protection of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples; digital art, its definition and preservation; restitution of holocaust-era assets; looted art in times of War; succession of states and cultural heritage; organised crime, terrorism and cultural heritage; anti-money laundering (AML) measures in the art market; circulation of cultural property; forgery, international tax & customs law; auction houses law; monuments and memorials as reparations of human rights violations and monument-toppling.

For further information please contact the event organizers by email  at: 
Email: mfilho@tce.pb.gov.br 
Whatsapp: +55 83 99954 0086.

May 8, 2011

Mother's Day and Art Theft: Remembering A Mother's Day Ruse Two Years Ago in a Brazilian Heist and the Mother Who Destroyed Art Evidence

Happy Mother's Day!
(Photo by Erin Sibel Sezgin)

by Catherine Schofield Sezgin, ARCA Blog Editor-in-Chief

In my household, my adolescent children laugh a lot about the difference between what their mother does and what the holiday cards say mothers do -- apparently my children do not see me as someone who washes their laundry or spreads butter on their toast -- but as the person who insists on seeing art museums in every city they have visited and is undeterred by their reluctance to see one more exhibition. My children's lives changed when they heard their mother say, "My dream is to go to Italy and study art crime." But as a mother, I do believe that art helps the children understand our communal link to the past and art crime of course is a narrative form that focuses our attention on those artworks.

So today, while my children sleep in, I searched online about "Mother's Day and art theft" and found two interesting examples.

Two years ago the blogger "Art Hostage" wrote "Stolen Art Watch, Brazilian Art theft, Overkill or What" commenting on an article in "El National" in Caracas, Venezuela that reported on a residential art theft executed by a gang of twenty art thieves in Brazil who entered the home after the delivery of flowers for Mother's Day.

The second story is about the mother of repeat offender and art thief, Stephane Breitweiser, who destroyed artworks allegedly stolen by her son to eliminate evidence.

The Guardian's Jon Henley in 2002 reported "Priceless art haul destroyed by thief's mother" that Mireille Breitwieser destroyed 60 Old Master Paintings including works by "Boucher, Cranach, Watteau and Breughel".

Her son was arrested last month, again for stealing more art, Le Parisien recounted that Stephane's mother had previously (according to Google translate) "abandoned a tapestry on the edge of a motorway, paintings in a chapel, while copper paintings, discovered in a forest by a farmer, had been found in the barn of the farmer."

She served 18 months in prison for destroying art. This is exactly why mothers should not clean up their children's messes.

Happy Mother's Day!