calendario eventi  :: 

X

1/10/2008

Fernando Botero

Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich

“The circus has colors in itself, movement, poetry and altitudes of the human body that you do not find anywhere else.”
Fernando Botero

Galerie Gmurzynska is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works from legendary artist Fernando Botero’s acclaimed Circus Series. This is Botero’s first exhibit with the gallery and marks the start of an exciting relationship for the gallery and its continuously international audience.

Botero’s long career has been characterized by his ability to dive into broad series that control his artistic production for considerable periods of time. The Circus, it now seems, is the next series to anchor itself in Botero’s mind and oeuvre. Continuing in a style that has been his signature for the last five decades, the Circus Series presents the artist’s remarkable technical ability, a reigning knowledge of the artistic practices that have preceded it and Botero’s marked quest to show “volumes expressed with a minimum of shadows”.

Continuing the artistic genealogy of artists, such as Picasso, Leger, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas and Chagall, Botero’s Circus presents a world of wonders and excitement, coupled with an underlining longing that Botero likens to “seeing an old friend.” Working with a pictorial language of acrobats, exotic animals and their trainers, Botero enlivens the traditional meaning of loneliness and human suffering that 19th century Romanticism placed on portraying the Circus. The paintings are colorful and bright, yet also muted, showing the artist’s conscious restraint. The paintings and drawings refer to the traditional melancholy of the subject matter, but are saved by Botero’s uncategorizable redemptive humor and their energetic, yet refined rendering.

Botero’s paintings have always eluded simple categorization. On one hand being strikingly adept in their technical ability, but never seeming stale or static, they are updates of renaissance painting revered by the artist, but also subverted for his artistic goals. His depiction of the human form is all at once, unique, conservative, and controversial. Yet, somehow, it continues to reference political caricatures, five hundred years of art history and the socially poignant works of his South American homeland. His body of work could be likened to a growing puzzle, with each new work and series slowly revealing Botero’s artistic vision and genius. A vision, that almost half a century later, is both clearer and continuously ambiguous.


In conjunction with the Circus series Galerie Gmurzynska will also be exhibiting works from Botero’s critically acclaimed Abu Ghraib series, depicting the terror executed by American soldiers upon war prisoners, earlier this decade, in an Iraqi prison. These works join a long line of politically active works from Botero’s oeuvre. Shown together, it is the galleries’ and the artist’s hope that the two series will inform and contrast each other in new and illuminating ways, while giving Zurich its first chance to view either of these chapters of Botero’s life work.

Three bronze sculptures of various themes will also be exhibited, illustrating Botero’s three and a half decade adventure through exploring forms in three dimensions.

Fernando Botero was born in Medellin, Colombia in 1932 and was exhibiting art in his home country by the age of 16. Influenced heavily by both native and colonial art and architecture, by nineteen he had finished school and was showing and living in the Colombia’s capital city, Bogota. Travelling around Europe and Latin America, Botero, spent time in New York while discovering his signature style that would send his works across the world. He has received major retrospectives from numerous institutions including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden at the Smithsonian Institute in Man on Horse, 2008 Washington, D.C. and the Moderna Museet in Stockholm. He is also represented in the permanent collections of numerous major museums including, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hermitage State Museum in St. Petersburg. Botero splits his time between Paris, New York, Monte Carlo and Pietrasanta.

A full color, hardbound catalogue will be released in conjunction with the exhibit.

Opening reception October 2nd, 2008 6:30- 8:30 pm
The Artist will be present

Galerie Gmurzynska
Paradeplatz 2 - Zurich

stampa

permanent link