Botero – Abu Ghraib
Leave it to a man who paints chubby people to turn my head about the US atrocities at Abu Ghraib.
Here’s my deal, I don’t usually care for political art. Most of the time it’s simply “something is bad, we should protest” type messaging. To me this defeats the basic notion that there are multiple concepts that make the struggle and trivializes the art with this childish simplicity. Fernand Botero is now showing paintings showing under the title Abu Ghraib. I’m glad he is. For if for no other reason – no one else will. Botero has approached a serious subject with his usual style and in doing so forces the viewer to see the ideas and concepts of torture differently. Will we get to see a fat woman with her finger pointed like a gun? or will we start to finally see the brutality of just what man is capable of doing to his fellow man?
I can see the jumping off point for FB and it opens doors to a deeper subversive quality to his work that never thought was there.
Neil Jenney & Donald Sultan
I never thought of Jenney or Sultan as “uptown” artists in fact both of them being more or less interested in reductive approaches to their work it seems like a curious fit. I know you might disagree with me on that, however even Jenney’s “Bad Paintings” were extremely reductive in approach as well as final presentation. Both of these artists are not afraid to simplify – and both do so in a way that only reflects the amazing editing that goes on in the studio. This is a great pairing of artists who reward the viewer the longer the viewer cares to spend with the work.
This seems to me to be a great “artists for artists” type show, for it shows just how well smart decisions in the studio benefit the viewer on the other side of the object later on. That said – don’t dismiss this show for lack of interest in process – it just might point to the fact that “how” is often more important than “what” gets created.