Fernando Botero 'bullies' a willing Singapore
Carla Bianpoen, Contributor/Singapore
The exhibition of 20 monumental outdoor sculptures weighing close to 1.5 tons along with over 70 paintings, drawings and charcoals of Colombian maestro Fernando Botero is being hailed as a blockbuster event in Singapore.
It is one that should help give the island state its much- wanted recognition as a center of the arts equal to others in the world.
While this is an important introduction to the art of a master whose artistic roots lie in the Western hemisphere, the event is also highlighted by a dialog with Taiwanese sculptor Ju Ming of the Eastern hemisphere, whose last leg of the Singapore exhibition coincided with the first part of the Botero display, opened on Dec. 8.
And while Ju Ming exposes his typical philosophy of an artist who lets his art development flow from within, and Botero in contrast "plans" for the future, with one warning of too much education and the other precisely the reverse, their visions are in fact complementary. Aspiring artists in this region would do well in taking both opinions into account.
It is also of note that the two maestros share an artistic practice that makes the works of each of them breathe the spirit of their native roots.
As Botero walked the press along the line of his paintings at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) on the afternoon before the official opening of his first exhibition here, he stopped at his painting Muerte de Ramon Torres (1986, 153 x 183, oil on canvas), featuring a raging bull going over a dead matador.
A masterwork by its refined coloring -- the very delicate passage from shadow to light -- that reminds of the old classics of the West, it also displayed Botero's inventive mind that shows monumentality through adding a small detail onto the canvas, in this case a miniature of an emaciated figure that brings out a certain form of monumentality.
Botero explained that monumentality comes not from the large sizes, but from the small detail that detracts from the mass.
Bulls form a theme that started his artistic interest when he was sent to a school of matadors at the age of 12, and has since held his intense fascination.
The picture represents everything Botero goes for: the mastery of the old classics, monumentality that is embedded in proportion and the breath of his Hispanic roots. Time and again, Botero declares his belief that good art should have its roots in the land and place of the artist. Although he has left his native Colombia to live in Paris, New York and Pietrasanta in Italy, his paintings always include the spirit of the small town in Columbia, or at least what he imagines it to be.
He does not believe in globalization, for art must be rooted in the native land to achieve universality.
In a one-on-one interview at the Singapore Fullerton hotel, Botero elaborated that his art, like the art of other masters before him -- is based on steadfast conviction and the use of the best materials.
Good art is art that becomes universal by its local or regional rootedness which its skills in color, composition, and drawing bring to the heights of universal beauty. Such features mark art that has survived the ages, he contends.
As the maestro seems obsessed with having his art survive him by the centuries, he also insists that he is basically painting or sculpting for himself, not to satisfy art critics of any kind.
To choose an esthetic language that goes against the stream is quite courageous, but that is exactly what he has done. At a time that fatness is some kind of public disease, Botero has made it his signature in the arts, and there is hardly anyone who will say that the fat images on his canvas or sculpture are ugly. But the word "fat" as we interpret it in his understanding is ample and curvaceous, with a quality of beauty and, to some extent, sensuousness achieved by his very use of scale.
As Botero defines himself as a contemporary artist, and remains connected to his roots, he also remains tied to the past in terms of art history. Appropriating themes is nothing new in the history of art, and he does so in ample terms, but the point is to reinvent the theme and make it his own. To be able to invent one's own style, it is necessary to know one's heritage, what past traditions and rules were about, he insists.
He has learned, and appropriated a lot of the Renaissance masters like Giotto, Goya Durer, Velasquez and other classics from that period, discovered when he visited and studied at Europe's centers of the arts. He spent many years copying the Old Masters until he knew them so well that he could invent his own style.
His paintings of "inflated" figures on canvas or in sculpture may not appeal to everyone, but the utter refinement, inventiveness and intellectual depth of concept on which his art is based is unequivocal.
Botero was born in the provincial city of Medellin in 1932. His fascination with bulls and matadors after attending a bull- fighting school led him to draw, and later to enter courses in watercolor and drawing. It was to be the beginning of his lifelong vocation.
At 16 he became an illustrator for the Sunday supplement of El Colombiano, Medellin's major newspaper. His nude illustrations earned him a rebuke from his school principal, followed by being expelled due to his article entitled Picasso and Nonconfirmity.
He graduated anyway, and not long after that received a prize for his painting On the Coast, which allowed him to go to Europe and study Renaissance painters such as Giotto, Pierro della Francesca, as well as those like Rubens and Ingres, who also painted nudes.
He became deeply affected by the influence of the modern style of lyrical abstraction that was beginning to be the vogue in Europe.
Success and fame has not made the artist arrogant and above it all. He remains a very accessible person, who is interested in other people's lives.
"The first thing he asks me when he comes to Pietrasanta is how is my family," revealed one of his close assistants for packing and transportation.
But Botero's road to the top was not always as smooth as one would have expected.
In 1955, when he returned to Bogota from Europe, his works were flatly condemned by art critics, and he was left with not one painting sold.
But he had a solo exhibition in New York in 1957, after which he tried again to send in a painting in a national exhibition. The jury rejected it, but strong protests from the Bogota art community forced the jury to reconsider.
So when then did his star begin to rise?
He said it was in 1969, when he was invited to exhibit in five museums in Germany, including the Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden- Baden, Haus am Waldsee Berlin, Kunstverein Duesseldorf, Kunstverein Hamburg and Kunsthalle Bielefeld. Germany at that time had a lead role in the art world and before long, he was the focus of the most important art dealers.
In fact, his first major European exhibition held at the Staatliche Kunsthalle was so successful that it was also shown in Munich and Hannover.
Looking at his works, one may be struck by his command of color application, form and the balancing of volume. Yet it is the missing of expression that is intriguing. His nudes, whether in his paintings or in his gigantic sculptures, look with indifference, often as if gazing into empty space. An underlying humor is defined by the features, gestures and the tiny forms that make the almost realistic blown ups become surrealistic.
Whether one arrives at Changi T.2, walks in the park of the Fullerton hotel and the spaces of the Esplanade Theatres on the Bay, or the Suntec, the light that moves delicately over the sculptures of Fernando Botero seem to be inviting to touch and caress their smooth surfaces.
Meanwhile, the paintings, drawings and charcoals are at the Singapore Art Museum to be admired and enjoyed until Feb. 27, 2005.
The Botero in Singapore exhibition is hosted by Singapore Art Museum, curated by Malaysia-based Valentine Willie, and organized by Singapore Art Museum of the National Heritage Board in collaboration Valentine Willie Special projects Pte Ltd.