Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero (born April 19, 1932) is a neo-figurative Colombian artist, self-titled "the most Colombian of Colombian artists." He won the first prize at the Salón de Artistas Colombianos in 1958, He paints and draws in a style somewhat similar to Pablo Picasso whilst he lived in Dinard, Brittany, 1922, for example "Deux femmes courant sur la plage" (The Course). He strives in all his work to capture an essential part of himself and his subjects through color and form. His work includes still-life and landscapes, but Botero tends to primarily focus on situational portraiture. His paintings and sculptures are, on first examination, noted for their exaggerated proportions and the corpulence of the human figures and animal figures. The "fat people" are often thought by critics to satirize the subjects and situations that Botero chooses to paint. Botero explains his use of obese figures and forms as such: "An artist is attracted to certain kinds of form without knowing why. You adopt a position intuitively; only later do you attempt to rationalize or even justify it." He is an abstract artist in the most fundamental sense of the word, choosing what colors, shapes, and proportions to use based on intuitive aesthetic thinking. This being said, his works are informed by a Colombian upbringing and social commentary is woven throughout his work.
Biography
Botero was born in Medellín, Colombia, whose Catholic churches still maintained the Baroque style. His upbringing was marked by isolation from the traditional art venues such as museums and other cultural infrastructures. His Colombian heritage thus informs him. In 1980 he won the Salón de Artistas Colombianos and traveled to study arts in France.
In early 2004, Botero donated a series of 23 oil paintings and 27 drawings depicting different elements of the country's longlasting violence, created between 1999 and 2004, to the National Museum of Colombia, where they were first publicly displayed between May 4 and June 11. [1] In early 2005, Botero revealed a series of 50 paintings that graphically represent the controversial Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, expressing the rage and shock that the incident provoked in the artist. The works were initially presented at the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, and later in Germany and Greece. In October 2006, they were displayed at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City, their first showing in the United States. The Abu Ghraib series is currently being exhibited at The Center for Latin American Studies at the University of California in Berkeley through the end of March 2007.[2] Botero has stated that he does not plan to sell the paintings, but instead intends to donate them to museums as a reminder of the events depicted within. [3][4]
Quotes
When Colombian children go to church they see all these Madonnas, so clean and perfect. In South America china-like perfection is very much a part of the ideal toilet of beauty. More so even than the polychrome wood sculptures in Spain, Latin American sculptures look like porcelain. So, in contrast to Europe or North America, you connect the notions of art and beauty at a very early age. I grew up with the idea that art is beauty. All my life I've been trying to produce art that is beautiful to discover all the elements that go to make up visual perfection. When you come from my background you can’t be spoilt by beauty, because you've never really seen it. If you're born in Paris, say, you can see art everywhere, so by the time you come to create art yourself you’re spoilt – you're tired of beauty as such and want to do something else. With me it was quite different. I wasn't tired of beauty; I was hungering for it.
Exhibitions
- "Botero at Ebisu" (2004) in Tokyo.
- "Fernando Botero" (2006) in Athens.
- "The Baroque World of Fernando Botero" (2007) in Quebec City
- "Abu Ghraib Exhibit" (2007) in University of California, Berkeley
External links
Abu Ghraib series
- A Permanent Accusation A short movie on the Abu Ghraib series by Fernando Botero.
- Abu Ghraib: November 6 - December 30, 2007 It has been announced by the Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C. that Botero's paintings will be exhibited there at the end of this year.
- Abu Ghraib: January 29 - March 25, 2007 The first US institutional exhibition at UC Berkeley, with a webcast of a conversation between Fernando Botero and Robert Hass on the day of the opening.
- Abu Ghraib: October 18 - November 21, 2006 The first US gallery exhibition at the Marlborough in New York.
- The Body in Pain this essay by Arthur Danto at The Nation about Botero's Abu Ghraib series, discusses what Danto refers to as "disturbatory art"