Strong legacy
Fernando Botero’s works are as monumental as the man himself.
FERNANDO Botero grew up in the small town of Medellin in Colombia.
There was nothing inspiring about the town. It had no cultural traditions, no great museums and no acclaimed artistic community. and his father died young, leaving the family destitute.
But Botero had a monumental dream of becoming a great artist one day.
It could have very well have remained a castle in the air. But life and fate had other plans for Botero.
“My father is at the pinnacle of the world of art,” says a proud Fernando Botero Jr, Botero’s eldest son.
he was at the St Regis Kuala Lumpur last Saturday to talk about the legacy of his father, who shot to fame for his renowned “Boterismo” style.
his signature style, which Botero Jr says has an international appeal that is very rare for an artist, is all about playing with volume and exaggerated proportions.
The 86-year-old is one of the world’s most sought-after contemporary artists and has had more than 50 exhibits in museums, art galleries and parks in cities like Paris, New York, Barcelona and Singapore.
Some of his recent exhibitions have been held in Beijing and Shanghai, with China’s art enthusiasts showing great enthusiasm for the outsize works.
one particularly interesting exhibition, according to Botero Jr, was the 2017’s Botero: A Dialogue With Picasso show held at the hotel de Caumont in aix-en-Provence, France. This exhibition presented Botero’s works side by side with major pieces by Pablo Picasso, the very artist who inspires the South american.
originally an illustrator for Spanish newspaper El Colombiano, Botero enrolled in the San Fernando Royal academy of Fine arts in Madrid and became a painter before taking on sculpting in 1973.
“You can spot a Botero from miles away,” enthuses Botero Jr.
he says this sort of style is something “very difficult to achieve in art, to make something that is immediately recognisable. This is how you know you have made a contribution to the history of art.”
That rings true for the towering bronze horse sculpture housed in St Regis’s drawing Room. Simply called Horse, the largest horse sculpture by the Colombian artist, weighing 2.5 tonnes and standing at 3.6m x 3.5m x 1.8m, immediately commands awe and reverence.
The 61-year-old Botero Jr, who served as Colombia’s National defence Minister between 1994 and 1995, shares that his father’s discovery of the Boterismo style was a serendipitous moment.
“My father was chosen to represent Colombia to study under diego Rivera. The great Mexican artist was dying and contacted his government and asked them to invite an artist from each Latin american country so that he could teach them the tradition of Mexican muralism.
“For one of his assignments, my father had to paint a still life image of a guitar. all he could find was a guitarron, which is a very large guitar. For one strange reason, my father forgot to paint the small circle in the middle of the musical instrument.
“and when he gave the painting to Rivera, he took the brush from my father’s hand and did a very small circle in the middle of the guitarron and boom! Suddenly, the instrument became very huge and he discovered his style,” relates Botero Jr.
one of the Botero’s noteworthy works is his Abu Ghraib series from 2005. First exhibited in europe and then in the United States, the artist used his Boterismo touch to depict reports of the abuse of prisoners by american forces at the abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War (20032011).
one thing that his father holds closely to his heart, says Botero Jr, is that his art is able to provide pleasure.
“The great tradition of art is to always provide pleasure. The Impressionist artists produced works during wartime but their paintings depicted beautiful subject matters.
“This is something that contemporary artists rarely follow and my father wanted to provide that same, pleasurable artistic experience for viewers,” he says.
But, most importantly, people interact with Botero’s work, and it is this that makes him happy. That explains the sheer volume of his monumental sculptures. Botero Jr says his father is greatly delighted when people touch and feel his sculptures, and take photographs with them.
Fortunately for us, we have a Botero sculpture in the heart of KL. Go and feel it. Interact with the monumental horse, as Botero wants you to do.