from fat cats to jail cells: fernando botero
Leave it to the Nation to do a really cracker jack job of looking at political use of art (in a way that nicely dovetails with our current discussion of painting from photographs). Arthur C. Danto draws on references from the 1563 Council of Trent to Susan Sontag in describing why Fernando Botero’s latest paintings convey the anguish of the prisoners of Abu Graib in a way that no photograph can. Describing the power of painting to paint the “unseen,” Danto describes the paintings on view last month at New York’s Marlborough Gallery–by an artist he previously found “pathetic”–as masterpieces of “disturbatory” art, and totally riveting:
…Botero’s Abu Ghraib series, which draws on his knowledge of the graphic, even lurid paintings of Christ’s martyrdom by Latin American Baroque artists, in which Jesus bleeds from the crown of thorns, or from the wounds left by lance points in his ravaged chest. Abu Ghraib, in Botero’s rendering, also evokes Baroque prisons, like those one sees in the paintings titled Roman Charity, where a visiting daughter breast-feeds her chained father in the gloomy light of his cell.
I find it impressive that Botero did not offer these works for sale. He has the collection available as a gift to museums, but does not yet have an offer. To view the work, see Marlborough’s site. The print copy of the Nation includes additional images.
December 13th, 2006 at 8:38 am
I’m commenting with the disclaimer that I’ve only seen the reproductions of these paintings, not the originals. While Botero’s work is clearly not a rote copying of the photographs, his signature stylization does seem rote, and the result is that the photographs from Abu Ghraib are still more shocking and powerful than his paintings. It’s good to know that Botero has a willingness to explore a variety of themes, even difficult political ones, but I only wish he had the same willingness to explore with his form as with content. They may be technically well crafted, Botero’s a well-seasoned artist. Also, much art created from photos is technically competent. My complaint is that it’s just not very imaginative, and I would suggest that Botero’s style has also ceased to be very imaginative, which in my view, works against him.
When I see an image like this it makes me think of how someone might be punished for trans fats transgressions (other recent political news of a silly variety), rather than conveying the intensity of torture and human rights abuses.
December 13th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
Ouch!
One thing about having a signature style is that your style does not really change much. One could apply the same complaint to at least 75% of the artists in the contemporary art world. While you may be more aesthetically keen on Brice Marden or Chuck Close, how much are they breaking new stylistic ground in their maturity? On the flip side, artists who choose to vary how they’re working run the risk of being lost in the brand-obsessed world we’re in. I don’t know if you had the chance to read to linked Nation article, but I agree with Santos’ opinion that while the photos were shocking from the perspective that the soldier’s actions were appalling, the prisoners’ shame and emotional reaction were captured far less in photos, which as Susan Sontag proposed, de-sensitize us, than they were in these treatments (the one you singled out as “like this” perhaps not the best example. This one perhaps better.)
December 13th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
p.s. do I like the Botero paintings? I am moved by the tortured way the artist has pushed the real “terror” of abu graib into his own practice; his own signature style–to grapple with something urgent in his language. I think you’re right that to say more, one would have to see the paintings in person.
December 13th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
by recreating the photos in his own (humorous) style one is forced to relate to the content rather than the form.
it’s an atttempt to move past blame toward responsibility
December 14th, 2006 at 4:19 am
It might be instructive to compare this Botero series with the literal depictions of abuse of power painted by Leon Golub in the 80s - monumental raw images painted on unstretched canvas of naked helpless prisoners being “interrogated” by grinning mercenaries.
A google image search of Leon Golub doesn’t produce a wide array of good examples of his work. But there is a decent Arts Journal article with a reasonably good example at:
http://www.artsjournal.com/artopia/archives20050401.shtml
Also worth noting here are the powerful, very stylized images of torture depicted in many of the murals of David Alfaro Siqueiros. Example:
http://www.homolaicus.com/arte/muralismo_mexicano/caino.jpg
February 6th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
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