Posted on 10/25/2006 8:09:30 AM PDT by dead
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Colombian artist Fernando Botero's paintings and sculptures grace museums and public spaces around the world, but he suddenly had trouble exhibiting his work in America when the topic was Abu Ghraib.
A series of paintings depicting U.S. military abuse of Iraqis in Abu Ghraib prison was rejected by all the U.S. museums to which it was offered before it found a home at the Marlborough Gallery in Midtown Manhattan, where it opened last week and will remain on display until November 18.
"Here there is total freedom of expression. That's why it was so alarming that the museums didn't want to show these works," Botero told Reuters in an interview at the gallery on Tuesday, surrounded by paintings of stripped and bound prisoners being abused by guards with dogs.
The paintings are derived from texts describing the events, Botero said, and do not mimic the famous photos.
"I wasn't revealing anything that wasn't already known .... I was disappointed that this artistic vision was not shown," said Botero, 74, whose Jack Nicholson-like hair has turned gray.
"They tell me there have been many angry calls to the gallery," Botero said.
Botero said he never bothered to ask which museums turned him down. The institution that attempted to place the work, Art Services International, referred questions to its director, who was unavailable for comment.
Art critic David D'Arcy said museums were hesitant to antagonize the government, especially since the uproar over photographs by the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1980s.
"If it were other works by Botero, they would have been taken right away. He's probably the most recognizable contemporary artist after Christo," said D'Arcy, contributing editor for Art + Auction magazine and correspondent for The Art Newspaper.
"The last thing they want is to be stigmatized. There was a time when museums were eager to shock people. I don't think that time is now," he said.
ACCEPTED IN EUROPE
Botero's Abu Ghraib exhibition has been seen in three European museums and Botero said he has offers to display it at several others.
He said he was so shocked by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that he departed from his trademark work, which depicts blissfully rotund people in whimsical, non-threatening settings.
"It led me to work 14 months with an obsession," he said.
The result was 42 drawings and 38 oil paintings that he began five months after investigative reporter Seymour Hersh unveiled the abuse in The New Yorker magazine in May 2004.
Botero fans may be shocked to see a gallery of his work portraying violence, sexual abuse and torture in the same style, composition and colors that have made his work so popular with the public, if not always with the most exacting art critics.
Botero called the Abu Ghraib project an "aside" and that he has since returned to painting his jolly, oversized crowd-pleasers.
"They are never fat. They are volumetric," Botero said, correcting what he considered a reporter's oversimplification of his characters.
He hopes the exhibit will find a home in a U.S. or European museum, but it is not for sale. It will be donated, he said.
"I don't believe in making money off human suffering."
Botero said he never bothered to ask which museums turned him down. The institution that attempted to place the work, Art Services International, referred questions to its director, who was unavailable for comment.
A bunch of museums turned down my art for political reasons, but I can’t name a single one.
Art critic David D'Arcy said museums were hesitant to antagonize the government, especially since the uproar over photographs by the late artist Robert Mapplethorpe in the 1980s.
"That is a shocking “fact” that I just pulled out of my ass. Do you like it? Is it art?"
"The last thing they want is to be stigmatized. There was a time when museums were eager to shock people. I don't think that time is now," he said.
Am I nuts, or does this article clearly state that these painting are currently on display in a Manhattan Art Gallery. How can it be censorship if they’re on display for all to see?
He said he was so shocked by the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that he departed from his trademark work, which depicts blissfully rotund people in whimsical, non-threatening settings…"It led me to work 14 months with an obsession," he said…Botero called the Abu Ghraib project an "aside" and that he has since returned to painting his jolly, oversized crowd-pleasers.
Yet another tragedy of the Abu Ghraib scandal – fourteen months worth of paintings of happy fatty people in non-threatening situations lost for eternity. I weep. I weep.
Death by Trans Fat.
Give it to the Iraqis. Americans are known to be biased against fat people, and that is what he paints. Quite often he paints them in the bathroom. He will win world reknown that has so far been denied him with this "obra." Sin verguenza.
LOL!!!!!!!!
Starving them wasn't one of the accusations, apparently.
lol
Yeah. Suuuuuuuure.
He should have shown smokers being tortured. Nanny staters would have flocked to "nauseums" in droves.
I just spit my soda all over the keyboard..thanks!
I'll never look at Splash Mountain the same way again...
The islam kooks are more likely to kill you over this than anything else.
I think cair should be notified of this guy's work.
They might do a rushdie on him.
Wonder if those same "Museums" would display a painting showing Mohammed behind the the butchers of Nick Berg directing them to cut his head off...
I've enjoyed Botero's work too (he's like Lucien Freud, for the non-insane.)
Who doesn't enjoy paintings and sculptures of harmless funny fat people? But I have to admit, I kinda like seeing them tortured too, though. Stupid harmless funny fat people had it coming.
i'm still waiting for the south park spoof of a beheading video.
why not an exhibit of the attrocities of Saddam in Iraq; the beheadings of innocent people by the terrorists.....????
Holy shit. I had no idea of the cruelty we engaged in. Feeding this guys McDonalds day and night!!! What a horror. Let the punishment fit the crime, death by Big Mac to those who perpetrated this crime!!!
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