IN 1963, the UC Berkeley Art Museum (BAM) got off the ground with a major gift from artist and teacher Hans Hofmann. The abstract expressionist donated 45 of his revered paintings to BAM, along with a $250,000 check.
This year, the museum received another boon — 56 paintings and drawings from Colombian artist Fernando Botero. The works are from the artist’s intensely political paintings and drawings “The Abu Ghraib Series,” which shines a very painful light on the torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq. A showing of the donated works is now on display.
“Botero is a very, very well-known artist and has been for three decades,” BAM chief curator Lucinda Barnes says. “It’s fantastic to get a gift like this. It recognizes his short history here in Berkeley. We’re thrilled.”
Botero was inspired to create the series, featuring more than 80 works, after reading an article by Seymour M. Hersh in the New Yorker about the abuses in Abu Ghraib. He spent 14 months drawing and painting, working nearly nonstop on pieces that have been compared to those done by Goya and Picasso.
After he completed the series in 2005, several American institutions were approached to host an exhibition and, in 2007, UC-Berkeley’s Center for Latin American Studies was the first to agree to show the anguished graphic paintings and drawings in the Doe Library.
Today, the drawings and paintings are back in Berkeley for a second showing, this time at BAM. They are set against a gray wall, which Botero requested, and are striking in their tone and size. Many of the figures painted are life size, if not exaggerated. They show men being urinated on, waterboarded, attacked by dogs and dressed in women’s underpants. Gloved hands pull hair, men vomit as they crouch naked on the cold floor.
“This work is specific but it speaks beyond its time,” Barnes says. “In larger terms he’s talking about humiliation and human injustices.”
Barnes says the museum is working on making the Botero exhibit a traveling one. It is presented with a 100-page catalog.
We talked to Botero, who was vacationing in Greece, via e-mail about the paintings and his donation to the Berkeley Art Museum:
Q. What kind of feedback did you get about your work when it was first exhibited at UC-Berkeley in 2007?
A. The exhibition was presented in the main library of the university, thanks to the interest and efforts of professor Harley Shaiken, director of the Center of Latin American Studies at UC-Berkeley. He read in the New York Times about these paintings and invited me to do the exhibition. Many visitors were deeply moved by these images, as I saw the day of the opening.
Q. Was the response to the work in Berkeley different from other places you’ve exhibited?
A. The hate for the Bush government was universal. I showed this series of works in Rome, Milan, Stuttgart (Germany), Vigo (Spain) and New York and, after Berkeley, at the American University in Washington, D.C. Everywhere there was a sympathetic reaction.
Q. Has feedback been different since the election of Barack Obama as president of the United States?
A. The new government was received with enthusiasm all over the world, as everybody knows. The condemnation of torture was perhaps the most important element in this new attitude.
Q. Why did you decide to give the paintings and drawings to the Berkeley Art Museum?
A. Many institutions of human rights approached me about these paintings, of course. I decided to donate these works to Berkeley first because of what the university represents in the history of human rights and liberalism, and then because it was the first American institution to invite me to show this series. The paintings had been proposed to several museums before Berkeley by Art Service International, an institution that proposes shows to museums in America. It was not accepted; perhaps for artistic reasons, but for political reasons for sure.
Q. Why did you refuse to sell any of the work?
A. From the first moment when I started working, I knew that I would not sell the paintings because I believe it is immoral to have a profit based on human suffering.
Q. I read that you noted a lack of artistic response to the situation in Iraq. Have you noticed any change in how American artists are interpreting the ongoing struggles in Iraq and Afghanistan? Do you have any ideas why there might have been a lack of response?
A. I was surprised that the American artists did not do anything important about this most shameful thing from their country. The only logical explanation would be that American art is mostly abstract or conceptual. It is difficult to say something clear and direct on the subject.
I was full of rage, when I started to work, by the monstrosity and the hypocrisy of the situation. The more I worked — and I worked 14 months nonstop — the more calm I felt in my mind. I hope that some kind of investigation and justice will come to this matter.
Q. Do you see yourself taking on subject matter like Abu Ghraib in the future?
A. In the year 2001, I did a series of works reflecting the drama of my country, Colombia — the violence, the drugs, the kidnappings, etc. These works I donated to the National Museum in Bogota. But I will not do work each time there is injustice in this world. I believe that art has some responsibility in front of some facts, but the most important responsibility is with art itself. You can show torture in your work, but what you do has to be, first of all, art. I will not be the eternal “cronista” (chronicler, reporter) of the dramas of humanity.
