THE SPINE OCTOBER 4, 2006
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I am almost certain that you would recognize the paintings and drawings of Fernando Botero, the Columbian artist who shows at Marlborough Gallery in New York. He's the one with the fattened bodies, puffed up men and women and equally puffed up children. He has made grossly fat grossly chic, at least for the Latin American set and even those of its members who are quite svelte. There's nothing more fashionable to have a family portrait done by this Botero, which means plumped up by a man with a very unusual view of humanity.
On October 18, a show of his, comprised of 40 oils and 40 works on paper, opens at Marlborough. But it is not his usual subject matter. This time his subjects are not socialites but prisoners, prisoners of Abu Ghraib, also fattened -although I remember the photographs of the torture scandal showing rather emaciated men. It's possible that I don't understand what the message of his bloating really is. An article in The Art Newspaper doesn't explain his art either. But it does report that Botero had been searching for an American museum to exhibit the work but those he has contacted have shown "no interest."
This surprised me. I thought there was something rather voguish about depicting U.S. torture in Iraq, quite smart, in fact. So it would be easy to find a venue for this exhibit. Well, at least not in the States. But Botero has gotten two other museums to hang this work, although it's not clear if it would be part of larger exhibitions or just the torture pictures, anyway, there is a tradition of artists painting enormities. Think only of Delacroix's "Massacre at Scio." That, of course, is a masterpiece. Botero's work is junk.
3 comments
"This surprised me. I thought there was something rather voguish about depicting U.S. torture in Iraq" U.S. torture in Iraq? When did this occur? There was no "U.S." sponsored torture in Iraq. Americans should be proud of how our government handled the Abu Ghraib scandal. A relatively small number of individuals violated the rights of Iraqi prisoners---and were punished for doing so. The investigative process had already commenced before a single article was published in the MSM. Nobody was involved in a cover up!
- thomsondavid
October 4, 2006 at 9:08pm
No message, just style. You know, when Picasso wasn't being abstract, his figures were plump, though not bloated like Botero's. Maybe Botero is just taking it a step further.
If an artist wants to show his contempt he'll tell you what his "message" is, which I'm sure Botera will be doing, at whatever gallery they're sipping Chardonnay in while nodding gravely before one of his Abu Ghraibs priced at $100.000.
- jm_rice
October 5, 2006 at 1:45am
Jm -- when Picasso was not "abstract" his figures were not necessarily plump (think back to the Blue and the Rose Periods at the beginning of the last century) but his large figures worked better than Botero's because they aspired to a controlled monumentality that was reflected in the classical serenity of their faces. (For the record, Picasso was never abstract; his cubist fracturings and surreal distortions deconstructed the visual but always clearly referred to it, or, as my painting teacher once said, "If it's a Picasso, there's an eye in there somewhere.") But as M.P. stated, Botero is not on that level. As I understand it, the artist is seeking to express a delight in the voluptuous pleasures of the flesh, but since all of his forms are "reduced" to the same proportions and all the faces are the same mincing blank expression, the emotions are equally as rubber-stamped. I suspect his show at the Marlborough will reduce the atrocities of Abu Ghraib to the cliches of an artistic style whose expressive range runs a gamut from the sentimental glorification of the noble peasant to the banality of a mild parody of same. Alas. But I'll give the show a shot. You never know
- Peg McCreary
October 10, 2006 at 1:40pm