The recent devastating dam disaster in Brumadinho, Minas Gerais, Brazil, made me think back to our visit to the region in 2013 to see Inhotim, the fabulous garden/art complex, located in the same area as the dam, just a short distance from Belo Horizonte.
I remember how red the iron-rich soil was in that part of Brazil but also how rigorously the earth has been mined and ripped apart to gain access to valuable deposits.
The result was not a pretty sight and I found myself thinking how beautiful it must have been before the miners arrived.
As we drove into Belo Horizonte, I was astonished by the height and density of housing, with the countless high rises, office blocks and apartment buildings stacked close together in tight clusters, smothering the entire hillside.
This sight, along with the striking redness of the grim, heavily-mined landscape outside the city, made a powerful and unforgettable impression.
It was, therefore, consoling, even inspiring, to go to Inhotim, the superb open-air art museum and garden complex that took two years to build and opened in 2006.
It was all the idea of mine-owner/businessman and multi-millionaire Bernardo Paz, who built Inhotim as a way of creating employment as well as establishing a fabulous 140 hectare garden with conference facilities along with a cluster of white-walled art galleries, dotted throughout the garden as places to display the best of Brazil’s modern art.
At the time of my visit, I was literally gasping with delight and admiration at what Paz had achieved. Inhotim was a pure delight and I was in awe at every turn.
I never stopped talking about how impressed I was that Paz had chosen to use his wealth to create something so positive, uplifting, beautiful and original.
You can imagine my utter dismay when this week I decided to do a little Google search to see how Paz was doing, only to discover that the 68-year-old had shockingly been sentenced . . . to nine years in jail for money laundering.
What? Oh no, say it ain’t so, I thought. How could this happen. He was one of my heroes. I hadn’t felt such a devastating blow since Aung Sang Suu Kyi, another of my heroes, plunged from such grace and dignity ending in calls for her to be stripped of her much deserved Nobel Peace Prize.
Paz it turns out was convicted in 2017 of receiving $98.5 million from a Cayman Islands based fund between 2007 and 2008 intended as a donation for Inhotim, but instead he used the funds to keep his other companies afloat. Oh dear.
Not only was he sentenced for this white-collar crime, but his sister, Virginia de Mello Paz, also got five years for her part in the scandal. What a shame, what a debacle.
Today, both Bernardo and his sister are appealing their convictions. Under Brazilian law, people convicted of white-collar crimes are allowed to remain free until the convictions are upheld by an appeal court.
In the meantime, Paz has stepped down as chairman of Inhotim, which is apparently still moving full steam ahead, under new leadership, with new art installations and special presentations.
It has been estimated the Inhotim complex costs about $10 million a year to run but only 15 per cent of that comes from gate receipts.
I am left wondering what to make of all this.
Is Paz a hero or villain, saint or sinner? Many still regard him as one of the world’s great patrons of the arts, especially for the job he has done to promote, protect and preserve some of the best of Brazil’s modern art.
His lawyer, Marcelo Leonardo, is proclaiming Paz’s innocence, saying the conviction is unfair.
The appeal is still pending. Paz and his sister may yet be cleared. For now, they are free until the appeal court comes up with a ruling.
For me, I can only rest in the happy memory of how wonderful it was to visit Inhotim and how thrilled I was to see the phenomenal Burle Marx landscape with its 1,300 varieties of palms and more than 5,000 plant species. Take a video visit to Inhotim.
MORE SHOTS OF INHOTIM
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