The previous director of the Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro (Mam Rio) has been ordered to pay 100,000 reais (round $20,000) for breach of contract. Fábio Szwarcwald, who served because the museum’s director from 2020 to 2022, resigned shortly after publicly elevating considerations over the security of the constructing and assortment, together with stating that the museum had lacked fireplace insurance coverage from 2006 till 2022. The museum argues that the statements, even when true, undermined its credibility with donors, artists and the artwork market.
Throughout his tenure, Szwarcwald pushed for the museum to make pressing enhancements in security and infrastructure, together with acquiring fireplace insurance coverage protection. In his first 12 months as director, the museum’s working prices rose from 14m reais ($2.8m) to 22m reais ($4.3m), inflicting stress between Szwarcwald and the museum’s board, which appointed a separate administrative director to regulate the museum’s funds.
Szwarcwald argued that the upgrades have been mandatory and that fundraising had additionally elevated to round 20m reais ($3.9m) throughout that interval, which justified larger spending for wanted investments like threat administration. He said that funds have been used for the modernisation of fireside and electrical programs and for the set up of round 80 safety cameras, because the museum beforehand had solely 16 cameras throughout its campus. In an interview after his resignation, Szwarcwald mentioned the board’s failure to maneuver ahead with an insurance coverage plan was “the final straw”, and that he had spent a very long time negotiating phrases with insurers however his proposals weren’t authorised.
The Mam Rio introduced Szwarcwald’s request for resignation in an announcement in September 2021, explaining that it had eliminated him from the chief board and had invited him to take up the position of director of institutional relations, a place “that appeared to the administrators extra constant together with his skilled profile”. Paulo Albert Weyland Vieira was introduced because the interim govt director earlier than Szwarcwald formally left in February 2022; he has since transitioned into the total director position.
Earlier than becoming a member of the Mam Rio, Szwarcwald labored in finance and was referred to as a distinguished artwork collector. Due to his background in cultural philanthropy and fundraising, Szwarcwald was appointed director of the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage in 2017. Throughout his tenure, the cultural centre gained widespread consideration for disputes over Queermuseu, a bunch exhibition exploring queer themes that was cancelled and have become a flashpoint in debates over censorship in Brazil.
In line with the Rio de Janeiro justice courtroom, even when the knowledge disclosed by Szwarcwald in regards to the Mam Rio have been true, he violated a contractual confidentiality clause by publicly exposing inside points and brought on “vital reputational injury” by his statements. The identical ruling established that Szwarcwald’s contract with the museum remained in impact till January 2022, even after his departure as director was introduced, and ordered the museum to pay him the compensation that had been agreed to in his unique contract.
Szwarcwald plans to enchantment the high quality, based on Brazilian media, arguing that the statements relating to the interval throughout which the museum lacked fireplace insurance coverage protection don’t violate the confidentiality clause. He provides that this reality, which was acknowledged by the Mam Rio, doesn’t represent a commerce or industrial secret regarding the safety of the museum’s assortment.
Szwarcwald didn’t reply to requests for remark. The Mam Rio additionally didn’t reply to requests for remark, and has beforehand said it doesn’t touch upon ongoing authorized issues.
The museum at the moment holds a set spanning round 16,000 works, one of many largest in Brazil, together with items by Constantin Brâncuși, Alberto Giacometti, Hélio Oiticica, Tarsila do Amaral and others. It beforehand caught fireplace in 1978; the museum’s proto-Brutalist concrete construction, designed by the Brazilian architect Affonso Eduardo Reidy, survived largely unscathed, however its complete library and round 600 works, or almost half of the gathering on the time, have been destroyed.
