Fernando Botero's "Abu Ghraib" - A Conversation with the Artist

Subject:

Arts

Institution Name:

UC Berkeley

Collection:

Webcast UC Berkeley Events

Grade Level:

Post-secondary

Abstract:

Fernando Botero, Artist
in conversation with
Robert Hass, Professor of English, UC Berkeley
Poet Laureate of the United States (1995-1997)

Fernando Botero, the most famous living Latin American artist, will display his Abu Ghraib paintings at the University of California, Berkeley. These 47 paintings and drawings belong to a long tradition of artistic statements against war and violence that include Goya's Caprichos and Picasso's Guernica.

Organized by the Center for Latin American Studies, these paintings have never been displayed in a public institution in the United States. The exhibit was "proposed to many museums in the U.S," according to the artist, but all declined to show it.

The New York Times said the images "do something the harrowing photographs of the naked, blindfolded and tormented prisoners do not: they restore their dignity and humanity without diminishing their agony or the absolute injustice of their situation."

The Financial Times reported, "Full of vivid primary colours, they [the oil paintings and drawings] are reminiscent of the work of socially conscious Mexican muralists such as Jose Clemente Orozco and Diego Rivera, artists who fascinated the young Botero in Medellin."

Languages:

English

Material Type:

Primary Source

Media Format:

Audio, Video

Conditions of Use:

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5

Copyright Holder:

2007 Regents of the University of California