It is all too easy to dismiss Fernando Botero. The Colombian-born artist’s rotund, out-sized figures and exaggerated, folk- flavored style can come across, at least at first, as insubstantial and the opposite of hip and edgy.
Not helping matters is the commercial appeal of his work, which has gained a huge popular following. Even though he has been shown in major galleries and museums worldwide, a sizable segment of the art world still turns up its nose at him.
Tellingly, the 13-city itinerary for the massive touring Botero retrospective, which opens Saturday at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, does not include one top-level American museum or any that focus on contemporary art.
But Los Angeles’ and New York’s loss is Colorado’s gain, because this exhaustive exhibition makes clear that it is time for a major reconsideration of this doggedly independent-minded artist, who turned 77 in April.
Writing him off as a commercial sell-out or quaint picturemaker is just plain short-sighted.
Indeed, the Botero that emerges via this exhibition, which will surely draw visitors from along the Front Range, is a surprisingly complex, often subversive artist who is not afraid to confront the uglier sides of life.
Of course, there are plenty of examples of seemingly innocuous genre scenes, such as “Dancers” (2002), a virtuosic 56-by-46K-inch pastel, and the artist’s well-known portraits of voluptuous, Rubenesque women, such as the 16 1/4-by-50-inch bronze, “Reclining Woman” (1996).
But such works are equaled if not outnumbered by darker pieces, such as his raw, unblinking view of a brothel, “The House of Marta Pintuco” (2001), or his satirical, discerning depictions of political and religious leaders, such as “The President” (1987).
Among the exhibition’s most compelling works are a group of three small canvases, each with uncharacteristically black backgrounds. None is more powerful and direct than “The Wall (Execution)” (2004), relatively small at 21 by 17 inches.
While a building burns in the background — a hint of the surrounding chaos — a barefoot man, portrayed starkly against a bare wall, puts out his hands in a useless effort to stop two hauntingly stylized streams of bullets from piercing him.
It should be remembered that Botero, born in Medellín in 1932, grew up in a country that has been riven by social strife, civil war and drug trafficking. What he has seen and experienced, both up close and from afar, has clearly gone far in shaping him.
He was one of the first major artists in the world to address the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the resulting body of work, which was shown in Singapore and Rome in 2004-05, remains among the most important artistic statements on that event.
This large-scale exhibition, which was organized by Art Services International in Alexandria, Va., covers the full trajectory of Botero’s career, with 100 paintings, drawings and sculptures. Adding a feeling of heft are several of his monumental bronzes, including the luxuriant “Smoking Woman” (1987), about 6 feet tall and 11 3/4 feet long.
Tariana Navas-Nieves, the fine art center’s curator of Hispanic art, has handsomely arranged the selections into the same thematic groups spelled out in the exhibition’s accompanying 283-page catalog.
Among the unexpected treats are a group of 18 drawings, which show a more intimate, less highly worked side of Botero’s artistry, as well as the artist’s less widely known still lifes.
Among the strongest examples of the latter is “Pear” (1976), in which the fruit takes on the same plump, oversized look of the artist’s figures. It has a few curious touches — a tiny emerging worm and a nearby hole in which it entered the pear, as well as a small, partial bite mark.
The exhibition’s earliest examples, including three unsettling expressionist portraits from the late 1950s and early ’60s, show the inevitable influence of abstract-expressionism on Botero.
But very quickly he adopted his own distinctive style, with its bright, even garish colors and stylized, corpulent figures rendered with little attention to anatomical accuracy. Indeed, virtually everything in Botero’s works is created from the artist’s memory or imagination.
Stubbornly defying contemporary artistic trends, though he admired certain 20th-century artists such as Pablo Picasso and drew on the Mexican muralists, Botero looked mainly to the old masters, creating many works that pay direct homage to masterpieces of the past, such as “Mademoiselle Rivière, after Ingres” (2002).
In addition, he could not help but be influenced by the folk art of his native South America as well the sumptuous, locally adapted views of saints and Biblical scenes that he saw in the Spanish colonial paintings hanging in the churches of his youth.
Botero’s fanciful, exaggerated style has drawn its share of criticism, because it can seem like commercially motivated conceit, but such knocks underestimate the artist’s seriousness and ignore the longterm viability of the approach.
With the Denver Art Museum all but ignoring modern and contemporary Latin American art, the fine arts center has rightly capitalized on this bounteous artistic realm. The institution deserves kudos for hosting this ambitious, appealing look at one of the region’s stars.
Kyle MacMillan: 303-954-1675 or kmacmillan@denverpost.com
Two Boteros grace Buell
Denverites who attend events at the Denver Performing Arts Complex have been able to experience the art of Colombian-born artist Fernando Botero for nearly a decade.
Two examples of his rotund, stylized figures — each 13 feet in height — are on view along the complex’s promenade in alcoves in front of the Buell Theatre.
The 1998 bronzes, titled simply “Man” and “Woman,” entered Denver’s public art collection in 2000. They were purchased for $1 million with funds raised by the Denver Art, Culture and Film Foundation. Kyle MacMillan
“The Baroque World of Fernando Botero”
Art. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, 30 W. Dale St. A touring retrospective featuring 100 paintings, drawings and sculptures by the famed Colombian-born artist. Saturday through Aug. 16; Opening celebration 5 to 8 p.m. today ($25, free for museum members).10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. $15, $12.75 students and seniors and free for museum members. 719-634-5581 or csfineartscenter.org.
