The Brazilian art of intervention
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The Brazilian art of intervention

Each time a financial institution is bailed out in Brazil it adds to the workload of the art curators at the Banco Central.

Over the years the central bank has built up a formidable collection of paintings and sculpture.

The curators are not so busy at the moment, though a few interventions are still taking place.

In mid-August the authorities moved in on eight small banks and finance companies in the states of Rio, Bahia and Sao Paulo. Any artwork around their offices is likely to be hauled off to Brasilia to be catalogued and marked with a bar code number.

Most exhibits go into storage, since the collection has no permanent home.

The federal museum of Brazilian art planned by Oscar Niemeyer, one of the principal architects behind Brasilia, has never been built. But there are temporary exhibitions, such as the one recently found in the eighth-Xoor art gallery at the central bank's concrete and black glass headquarters.

Very impressive it was too, with works such as Man on Horse by Aldemir Martins, and abstract art from painters such as Antonio Bandeira and Vicente do Rego Monteiro.

The collection is a testimony to the good taste of many former bank executives in Brazil - if not to their financial skills.

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