Botero on Abu Ghraib

Ok, ok, I know I said I was busy - and I am! - but I had to post on this: via Travis, via Art for a Change, I see that Fernando Botero (one of my favorite artists of ALL TIME) has done a series of paintings in response to the descriptions of torture at Abu Ghraib. From AFAC:

"I, like everyone else, was shocked by the barbarity, especially because the United States is supposed to be this model of compassion." The artist was so upset about what the US had done in Iraq that he set out to create a series of paintings that would forever etch the crime upon the collective consciousness of humanity. What Botero has achieved is nothing short of a contemporary equivalent to Pablo Picasso’s Guernica, the masterwork painted in outrage over the aerial bombing of civilians during the Spanish Civil War. Said Botero, "No one would have ever remembered the horrors of Guernica if not for the painting."

The collection of 50 large oil paintings will be shown as part of a larger exhibit of Botero's works in Rome beginning June 16th. As of yet, there are no plans to show the paintings in the US, where similar exhibitions have resulted in violent threats to gallery and museum owners. More. And now I'm really, really not posting for a while!!