ume volume in violence FERNANDO BOTERO SPECIAL FEATURE America was shamed. The world was horrified. Fernando Botero took the terrors of the Abu Ghraib Prison to heart and put them on paper and canvas. Myrna Ayad meets El Maestro, as he is affectionately known, during his first ever T show in the Middle East at Istanbul’s Pera Museum. T hey are not fat. They are voluminous and robust. They are not al- ways happy, either. The bombastic, roly-poly figures sometimes stare, expressionless, into oblivion. Even the word ‘Botero’ has come to denote roundness; the name is almost a synonym for rotund. “I have to explain it each time,” said an exasperated Fernando Botero during a press conference in Istanbul’s Pera Museum (Canvas 6.3), hours before his vernissage. “I don’t do fat figures, I work with volume.” It is a beautiful day in early May in Istanbul and Botero is visibly delighted at the excitement sur- rounding his first show in the Middle East. On show for two months were 64 works divided into six sections, which covered themes such as Latin American life, bullfights, still-lifes and the circus. One question from the press on his Abu Ghraib series triggers a host of others. Botero and his daughter Lina shoot me a quick glance of acknowledgement. “It’s very good to talk about Abu Ghraib,” he had said to me earlier during my interview with him, which had focused solely on that body of work. As the press fired their questions about the Abu Ghraib series, I realised that the world is still very much intrigued by the Colombian artist’s drawings and paintings on one of the 21st century’s horrors. Opening spread: Fernando The Poison Within Botero at Istanbul’s Pera Museum. Photography by Early suspicions around the activity of the USA’s 800th Military Police Brigade in Iraq had led to the Serkan Taycan. appointment of Major General Antonio Taguba to investigate the matter. What he found was shock- Facing page: Abu Ghraib ing: between October and December of 2003, United States Army personnel had engaged in acts 79. 2005. Watercolour on paper. 29.85 x 40.96 cm. of sodomy, rape, homicide and physical, psychological and sexual assault on prisoners in the Abu 98 SPECIAL FEATURE “Abu Ghraib became my obs andmy “Abu Ghraib became months, I watched obsession. For monthsand r reportand and months, I watched from readevery single pub every single television report from every channel single publication andand I coul television channel and I couldn’t stop drawing.” 99 SPECIAL FEATURE This page: Abu Ghraib 66. 2005. Oil on canvas. 33 x 32.1 cm. Photography by Sibila Savage. 100 SPECIAL FEATURE Ghraib Prison, now known as Baghdad Central gunned down. The Death of Pablo Escobar, do- Prison. Taguba’s findings were published in the nated to the National Museum of Bogotá, sees Taguba Report in May 2004, but the news had al- the criminal on a building’s rooftop, riddled with ready leaked and the world had heard about the bullets. “There are so many catastrophes,” Botero horrors at Abu Ghraib a month earlier thanks to says, shaking his head, “I follow the news and I Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh. see the wrong things happening in the world, Of the millions worldwide who were paralysed but it’s not my job to [paint] them all.” by the news was Botero, who, consumed with “Sabra and Chatila, Gaza, the Iran-Iraq war?” the findings, spontaneously began to draw I ask, “Why Abu Ghraib?” Botero pauses, placing while on a plane. For 14 months, he worked “ex- his hand on his neatly trimmed goatee and says, clusively” on Abu Ghraib. “It became my obses- without hesitation, “It’s only when situations sion,” he says, “for months and months, I watched don’t correspond to the place. With Latin Ameri- and read every single report from every single ca, the problem there was out of ignorance, but publication and television channel and I couldn’t the scandal with Abu Ghraib was that the USA stop drawing.” is a civilised country which did the same thing The Abu Ghraib series was not El Maestro’s that Saddam Hussein did in the same country.” premiere artistic expression of political or hu- The human tragedies at Abu Ghraib were not manitarian catastrophes. In response to the Yom the only aspect to prompt Botero’s empathy and Kippur War between Israel and the Arabs, Botero rouse his anger. It was also the hypocrisy. “The painted La Guerra (War) in 1973 – a mound of Americans present themselves to the world as a corpses, both civilians and army personnel, lay- model of compassion and the defenders of eve- ing dead amidst national flags. “That wasn’t the rything good, and [go on to] fight everything first time I reacted to conflict in the Middle East,” that is bad,” he explains, “and then you see that he smiles, going on to cite similarities between they are doing the same thing [as Hussein].” the Mediterranean and Latin American cultures. The similarities don’t stop there; La Guerra (War) also makes an indirect reference to works by Bot- The Past Resonates ero which centre on the violence in his native Artists who artistically engage in human suffer- Colombia. Massacre in Colombia (1999) and Mas- ing as a result of political conflict often cite Picas- sacre in the Cathedral (2002) take their inspiration so’s masterpiece, the Guernica. This issue’s four from the South American country’s tumultuous covers, for example, each illustrate Iraqi Modern- late 1940s, a period known as La Violencia. The ist Dia Al-Azzawi’s We Are Not Seen But Corpses violence spurred by drug-instigated guerrilla (The Massacre of Sabra) works, (nine in total), warfare in Colombia has also been a recurring which hark creatively to Guernica, in both style theme in his work, especially as Medellín, his and theme. Botero’s Abu Ghraib does the same. birth city, has been at the core of hostilities. Fol- Just as the world is reminded of the carnage that lowing the 1993 death of Pablo Escobar, Botero occurred in the Spanish Civil War, Botero’s Abu painted the Colombian drug lord’s last seconds Ghraib is an equally powerful aide-mémoire. “I as he attempted to escape police but was hope so,” says Botero; “That is my greatest ambi- “It was important that the works were seen by the American “It public.They will look was important at them that the wor and say ‘yes we bydid this’ the .” American public.They w 101 102 SPECIAL FEATURE Facing page: Above: Abu Ghraib 71. 2005. Oil on canvas. 37.15 x 45.1 cm. Below: Abu Ghraib 60. 2005. Oil on canvas. 131.13 x 62.25 cm. This page: Abu Ghraib 6. 2004. Pencil on paper. 29.85 x 40 cm. Photography by Sibila Savage. 103 SPECIAL FEATURE nce perhaps the era of al art have there Not since beenthe era of perhaps ‘demeaning’ to the prison victims. The fact is, ings which reflect this Botero’s corpulent figures, aside from being Medieval art have there been aesthetically amusing, insinuate a somewhat comical air about them. This does not go down phic, human suffering. paintings which reflect this well with some critics, who have considered that his paintings on violence are a form of glorifica- much graphic, human suffering. tion of the cruelty at hand. In a 2005 article from time.com, Vivienne Walt quotes Robert Storr, curator, critic and Dean of the Yale School of tion, because that is the point of art: it stays as a Art, on Botero’s Abu Ghraib: “It seems a willed at- permanent accusation.” tempt by a comedian to do tragedy.” Botero had Interestingly, all three artworks are owned heard such comments before and was unfazed. by public institutions: Guernica is located in “The style is the same, I don’t have two styles. the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid; a tapestry of Sometimes artists do a ‘parenthesis’ in their pro- it hangs in the United Nations headquarters in duction,” he explains, “take the example of Guer- New York; Al-Azzawi’s We Are Not Seen But Corps- nica: Picasso was painting Dora Mar in a portrait es (The Massacre of Sabra) is part of Qatar’s new of love to this woman and then when the bom- Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art (page 84), bardment of Guernica happened, he stopped and Botero donated Abu Ghraib to the Univer- working on Dora Mar to work on Guernica. Here sity of California, Berkeley Art Museum. “I knew is a parenthesis.” from the first moment that I wasn’t going to sell these works,” he says, “I don’t want to make a business out of human suffering and I knew The Hidden Hands they had to be in America.” Since the premiere The works, by all means, stir emotions. From dis- of the series at the American University Museum gust and dismay to compassion and anger, the in Washington, DC, in November 2007, Abu Gh- drawings and paintings that comprise Abu Gh- raib has travelled to Spain, Italy, Germany, China raib trigger a lot more empathy with the victims and France, among others. “I’m glad Abu Ghraib than published photographs ever would. For a was shown in the USA. It was important that the start, they are not replicas of the leaked images. works stayed there and were seen by the Ameri- Botero actually “imagined” the atrocities, based can public,” he explains; “They will look at them on the reports which he read and watched. Not and say ‘yes we did this’.” But as a body of work since perhaps the era of Medieval art have there which was inspired by atrocities in the Middle been paintings which reflect this much graphic, East, one would assume that it ought to be ex- human suffering. Abu Ghraib highlights the tor- hibited in the region. “I think it should, and eve- mentors’ intent to humiliate: the acts performed rywhere else,” believes Botero, adding that he on the prisoners were made to shame them psy- has received proposals from organisations in the chologically and inflict physical pain in what can Arab world to show Abu Ghraib. only be described as sadistic outrages. What’s Botero has had a fair share of criticism for ironic is that the tormentors are barely evident Abu Ghraib. Aside from receiving hate mail fol- in Abu Ghraib. They don’t need to be. lowing the USA tour of the series – “some were There are of course authentic elements de- not happy to see what they did” – El Maestro’s rived from the photographic realities of the Abu rotund shapes were also considered somewhat Ghraib abuse: army boots, naked blindfolded 104 SPECIAL FEATURE Abu Ghraib 67. 2004. Oil on canvas. 42.86 x 34.93 cm. 105 SPECIAL FEATURE conscious of the insinuations of I was painting Abu “I was not Ghraib,ofbut conscious the insinuations ng you of see andaslove Christ I waseventually painting Abu Ghraib, but everythingcomes you seeinto andyour art.” love eventually comes into your art.” 106 SPECIAL FEATURE men, women’s underwear, military working oners are unjustly tortured. And those who are Facing page: Abu Ghraib 68. 2005. Oil on canvas. 39.05 x dogs (without muzzles), human pyramids, urina- unjustly tortured or killed are considered mar- 45.85 cm. Photography by Ben Blackwell. tion, broomsticks, rope, wires… The list goes on. tyrs. “I was not conscious of the insinuations of Basically, Botero travelled mentally to Abu Gh- Christ as I was painting Abu Ghraib, but every- This page: (Detail) Abu Ghraib 2. 2004. Pencil on paper. raib Prison and delved into the minds of the tor- thing you see and love eventually comes into 40 x 29.85 cm. mentors and the tormented, envisaging the hor- your art,” says Botero; “As a matter of fact, the All images courtesy the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film rendous events. “The things that happened are only form of art that was seen in the churches of Archive unless otherwise specified. much worse than the photos,” he says. Why two Latin America was that of a bloodied Christ and, media then? “For me, drawings and paintings perhaps at the back of my mind, I remembered are just as important as each other,” he explains, that.” Some critics, he added, “said I gave the vic- “a drawing is not a sketch; it is a constructed im- tims their dignity back”. age that takes time to do and is just as effective Perhaps nothing will restore to the Abu Gh- as a painting.” raib prisoners their dignity or a sense of normal- But perhaps another dimension explored ity. It is a distressing notion to consider the dates by the series is a biblical one, and Abu Ghraib of the museum-housed works by Picasso, Al- 66 appears like a direct allusion. The face of a Azzawi and Botero: 1937, 1983 and 2005. Over blindfolded man is splattered with blood; with 70 years after the bombing of Guernica, and his mouth slightly open, as though crying for mankind has still not learned the devastating help or moaning in agony, his face is looking up, and long-lasting effects of such a tragedy. The perhaps in the direction of salvation. Some art- current state of world affairs confirms William works within the series show a seemingly cruci- Faulkner’s quote: ‘The past is never dead. In fact, fied man; others depict victims in cells, reminis- it’s not even past’. “It’s not finished,” sighs Botero, cent of the cell that Christ was held in before his “apparently, there are still things going on.” Just crucifixion. The works are not gory, nor are they who the terrorists are is an open-ended argu- gruesome – that’s not the intention – but the ment to be had by the powers that be. Mean- perceptible terror experienced by the prisoners while, Botero, myself and, surely, all of us, just beckons the injustice of it all and highlights their wish they would decide to stop the madness. innocence. Again, in another reference, just as Christ was unjustly crucified, so too these pris- For information visit www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 107
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