Center for Latin American Studies

During the spring semester of 2007, the Center for Latin American Studies hosted an exhibit of Fernando Botero’s Abu Ghraib series of paintings and drawings which depict the abuses committed by U.S. soldiers at that notorious Iraqi prison. In addition to holding a public conversation with the artist, the Center also organized a series of lectures to elaborate on the themes evoked in the artworks. The two essays included here were originally prepared for the panel discussion “Art and Violence” held on January 31, 2007. In “Fernando Botero and the Art History of Suffering,” Thomas Lacquer, the Helen Fawcett Professor of History at UC-Berkeley, explores the “historicism” of Botero’s art; the longstanding role of suffering in his work; and what distinguishes the experience of viewing Botero’s paintings of torture from viewing photographs of the same acts. In “Art and Violence: Notes on Botero” Francine Maciello, the Sidney and Margaret Ancker Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at UC-Berkeley, contextualizes Botero’s Abu Ghraib work within his larger oeuvre, and in relation to his Latin American roots, discussing how Botero’s human figures—“”bodies that announce to the world that bodies still count”—have always responded to the urgent and venerable plea: habeas corpus.