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.
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.
Yeah. Suuuuuuuure.
He should have shown smokers being tortured. Nanny staters would have flocked to "nauseums" in droves.
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...
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!!!
They only mock those they can mock without risk.
I wonder if the artist feels the Iraqis are entitled to the same freedom of expression that he so seems to enjoy here.
Museums rely on the public to donate money. I would cancel my Art Institute of Chicago donations if they had this there, and I've been donating for about 10 years.
Of course, the traitors living in NY needed to help the dems in this election cycle so they allowed this...what a whole bunch of crapola.