Brasil

Rio Blames It on Taxes

September 9, 2013 by Marion Maneker

John Chamberlain from Guggenheim

The Associated Press uses ArtRio as an occasion to bring up the tax issue in Brasil:

The wealthy connoisseurs flocking to the Rio show are complaining about steep import tariffs on fine art that can almost double the price of pieces bought abroad, leading many collectors to simply leave their top works outside the country.

“A friend bought a (John) Chamberlain sculpture for $400,000 at the latest Basel show in Europe and couldn’t wait to bring this cool piece back to Brazil,” said Gouvea, an owner of the Arte57 gallery in Sao Paulo. “Then he found out what the import taxes would be. Today, that sculpture sits in a home he has in the U.S.”

Lowering art taxes for super-rich collectors doesn’t rank high on the government’s list of priorities, especially following recent nationwide protests over the woeful public hospitals, schools and infrastructure average Brazilians get in return for sky-high income tax rates.

But proponents of lowering the tariffs say it’s not just an issue for the wealthy, but for all art lovers of more modest means. That’s because far fewer of the world’s best works are getting into Brazilian museums. Museums worldwide rely on loans from private collectors, loans especially important in nations like Brazil, where a culture of charitable support for the arts is virtually unknown and government investment lacking.

Art world pushes for changes in Brazil’s import taxes as dealers, collectors gather at ArtRio (AP/Washington Post)

Brasil’s Rapidly Growing Art Park

March 12, 2012 by Marion Maneker

Buried in the New York Times’s profile of Bernardo Paz’s Inhotim art park are some impressive attendance numbers and further proof that art as a leisure attraction is growing around the globe:

Inhotim received nearly 250,000 visitors in 2011, and it expects well more this year. But Mr. Paz, who says his companies provide Inhotim with about $60 million to $70 million for operations each year, sees no need to stop there.

In order to make Inhotim self-sustaining, he said he was planning to build no fewer than 10 new hotels here for visitors, an amphitheater for 15,000 people, even a complex of “lofts” for those who want to live amid the collection. He said Inhotim, which sprawls over nearly 5,000 acres, has room for at least 2,000 more works of art.

Inhotim’s growth over the past decade has provided a jolt to the surrounding economy, with many of the adult residents of villages nearby employed as laborers by Inhotim, making them dependent on Mr. Paz’s vision of assembling a “Disneyland” for contemporary art in the state of Minas Gerais.

A Keeper of a Vast Garden of Art in the Brazilian Hills (New York Times)