The exhibit is being hosted by the campus Center for Latin American Studies and runs through March 23.
The series, which Botero said stemmed from the rage he felt upon learning of the U.S. Army’s abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, has been displayed in European museums but never publicly in the United States. Botero said his offers to exhibit at public museums in the country were repeatedly turned down.
At an event preceding the opening of the show, Harley Shaiken, director of the Center for Latin American Studies, underscored the role of art in what he called a moment of extraordinary political and moral crisis in the United States.
During a conversation last night with UC Berkeley English professor Robert Hass, Botero discussed how he created the collection of paintings and what he hopes it will leave to future generations.
According to Botero, this series of art pieces was born on an airplane ride when, after reading many articles about the incidents, he took a paper and pencil and began to draw.
This led to 14 months during which he worked solely on these paintings, he said.
“The whole world was shocked with the revelation that America was torturing (prisoners) in Abu Ghraib. The more I read, the more I was motivated and angry,” Botero said. “The United States has been like a model of human rights and compassion. Suddenly, that this could have been in this prison was a big shock. This is the biggest damage ever done to this country.”
Botero cited painters like Diego Rivera and Pablo Picasso as inspirations for the works, which he said he hopes will remain a part of the collective consciousness long after the events themselves has been forgotten.
“I will not change anything,” Botero said. “I do not have that power, but I had to say something. The power is to remember something and I hope that I will do that with my work.”
His paintings of Abu Ghraib depict piles of contorted bodies being mauled
and attacked by vicious dogs, urinated on by faceless soldiers, or hanging naked or in women’s underwear from ceilings with expressions of extreme pain on their bleeding faces.
“One thing that strikes me is how these paintings are so abstract in one sense, but we think about the image in a much more believable way. It is a more real expression of pain (because) it is how (Botero) experiences it,” said sophomore Cyd Bernstein, a development studies major.
Hass concluded his conversation with Botero by pointing to the ability of the artist’s paintings to effect social change.
“An Egyptian writer told a journalist friend of mine that when the U.S. started torturing people it was as if a light had been turned off all over the world,” he said. “Maybe your paintings will help to turn the light back on.”