Colombian artist Fernando Botero's controversial art exhibition on the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib prison made its first full U.S. debut Tuesday at the AU Museum in the Katzen Arts Center.
Botero's "Abu Ghraib" collection consists of 79 paintings and drawings, which depict Iraqi insurgents being tortured by U.S. soldiers.
The naked prisoners - bound and bloodied - crowd cell floors while faceless men humiliate them in numerous ways. In one painting, a guard urinates on a male prisoner who is wearing red panties and a bra. Botero said at first, no one was willing to display his artwork.
"It has not been easy to show these paintings in America," Botero said.
Despite the suffering the paintings portray, the university's ability to host this exhibition epitomizes exactly what is right with America, said Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the AU Museum.
"Having [the Botero exhibit] at AU really represents a freedom of expression," Rasmussen said prior to the exhibition's opening. "I think the human act is beautiful - coming to terms with horror and tragedy."
The exhibition opened as various forms of aggressive interrogation were gaining media coverage because of the U.S. Senate's confirmation hearings for U.S. Attorney General nominee Michael Mukasey. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and several other senators announced they would vote against Mukasey because he did not know if waterboarding, a type of simulated drowning, was illegal torture under U.S. law.
Botero denied he believed his artwork would have an impact on the current debate on what defines torture. The stigma of Abu Ghraib is "too strongly attached" to the Bush administration. However, the artwork made a political statement, he said.
Botero based the paintings on his own visual interpretations of journalist Seymour M. Hersh's 2004 exposé in The New Yorker magazine, "Torture at Abu Ghraib," he said.
Botero never saw any photographs of the victims while he was painting, but also said he was very careful not to draw or paint anything that Hersh did not describe in the articles.
He said he was concerned some U.S. military personnel committed the same crimes against humanity they went to Iraq to prevent. The paintings had an important therapeutic value in helping Botero cope with these concerns, he said.
"I did it because I was very angry," he said. "It was a shock for the rest of the world, for everybody, but for an artist even more."
Botero said he never imagined his artistic response to the scandal would grow into 79 different works.
"I was doing something, and the other painting was trying to get out of me," he said. "I became like a chain. I couldn't stop."
The university is using Botero's exhibit as a platform for addressing human rights issues, said Larry Kirkman, dean of the School of Communication.
All six of AU's schools arranged programs related to the exhibition. The programs are designed to initiate student and faculty discussions, Kirkman said.
"These programs can have serious impact," he said. "They can provoke and reform widespread public debate."
The exhibition came to AU from Milan, Italy, and will go to Monterrey, Mexico, in January. Portions of the exhibition have also been on display at the Marlborough Gallery in New York City and at the University of California at Berkeley.
Botero donated the entire "Abu Ghraib" collection to the University of California at Berkeley, the artist said. He said he did not sell them because he did not want to make money off the suffering of others. The paintings will arrive at Berkeley in April 2008.
