In Botero Park, Medellín

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The most famous person in Medellín, and maybe in all of Colombia, is an artist named Fernando Botero. He is probably more famous than the president. The National Museum devotes the entire third floor to his works, and spread out in front of the museum, on a long and broad plaza called Botero Park, are many of his monumental scuptures in bronze. If you have ever visited a big art museum in the U.S., you will probably recognize his absolutely unique style. We have a number of his works at the DIA in Detroit, but as just a few in with so many others, his works seem like oddities. Here you see so many that they start to seem normal. He claims to be a figurative artist in the renaissance tradition of El Greco, Botticelli, or Michaelangelo, all of whom distorted the human form in a particular personal way throughout their careers. Botero, too, has never depicted the human form in any style except his own.



Botero is the artist who paints and sculpts "fat" people. He protests: "My subjects are not fat; they are voluminous." The extra volume makes them sensuous, he claims. But they are also very funny and lovable, and that is how you come away from Botero Park.



My camera is downloading now, and this blog will be mostly my pictures of Botero's sculptures, plus a few shots from inside the museum (completely allowed, if you don't use a flash). Read the captions. The last two are serious. A car bomb explosion, and a huge amazing painting of the Death of Escobar. Sorry the quality is not better. We have now been to the Hacienda of the late unlamented Escobar, where we saw amazing, unimaginable things. That will be the next bolg.

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Comments

[Sally]

Did Botero
Did Botero do the paintings? I saw the outdoor display but the for some reason the museum was closed the day I visited. Perhaps it was on a Sunday. By the time I left Colombia I was sick and tired of Botero. He popped up everywhere--Bogota, Medellin, Cartagena, travel brochures, literature, blah blah blah.

[Steve Engel]

Bushels of Botero
Your photos impelled me to search Botero images online: he was a prolific guy! The bodies he portrayed are (mostly) cozy-looking unless one wishes to be a calorie Nazi. But the heads . . . ! Those heads and faces become a bit disturbing after a while. Sometimes they are good for a chuckle, but now I want to read more about his personality and life.

[Rachel]

Truly wonderful- I love Botero!