When the Fat Lady Sings June 17,2022

We’ve been in Colombia for exactly two weeks and it has been a revelation.

Preconceptions have been swept away like old cobwebs. It reminded me of the first time I came to the US and my camera and lenses were stolen from the back of my chair in a bar in the LA airport while I was enjoying my first American bloody Mary. Even as a teenager I had read about guns in the US. Later I was warned “When you stop at traffic lights, don’t look left or right. They might shoot you.” When you mention Columbia you think drug cartels, violence and political chaos. Before flying here, seasoned travelers warned us of the dangers. We learned last week that health insurance here is cheaper if you buy bulletproof car windows. We’ve taken it seriously and learned the local lesson for keeping safe, “No Dar Papaya!” which translated is “Don’t give them papaya!” i.e. don’t show off your jewelry, phone, money or anything that would give a thief an excuse. It helps that we live in El Poblado, one of the safest and richest districts of Medellin.

 

Our first trip to the center of Medellin was interesting. It’s as busy as any city centre in the US, more so probably, with cars, motor bikes, taxis and buses all intersecting with

pedestrians and street hawkers in narrow streets.  Colombians are a “nippy” people who are mostly young and move around quickly. No waiting for lights or pedestrian crossings. The signs are there but are treated flexibly and jaywalking is a skill. So, there’s a merry dance as you weave your way around and find a gap between the cars stuck in a jam. Streets hawkers and entertainers are an art form and sell everything from fruit to dolls and hats. Having forgone my Texas baseball hat for diplomatic reasons and too frightened to wear my Aussie hat, my bald head invited a string of hat sellers offering assorted coverings for my dome to guard it from the sun. Having a larger than usual head, even for an average Caucasian, I declined graciously for fear it might look silly. The bald head, reflecting the sunshine, proved a magnet. 

 

This is the Uribe Palace of Culture built by a Belgian architect in 1926 in a sort of pseudo-Gothic style with a heavy touch of  Renaissance brickwork.  It borders Botero Square.  On the other side of the square is The Antioquia Museum, a simpler more impressive building that was once, as far as I can gather, a library and then a palace or government building and then fell into some disrepair. After some political tooings and

froings it was converted into a museum, principally to

house the artwork of Medellin’s famous son, Fernando Botero, after whom the square was named. Personally, I found the simplicity and proportions of the Museum pleasing compared to the fussy complications and extravagant architectural meanderings of the Palace.  Wikipedia has the museum’s foundation as 1881 which, if true makes it even more impressive. I would have reversed the ages of the two buildings.

 

Fernando Botero is still alive and lives in Monaco, presumably for tax purposes though that’s a guess. He developed a style of painting and sculpture all to himself which has become known as “Boterismo”,  a slightly unfortunate nomenclature since its main characteristic is to paint people filling dimensions which might be defined as “fat” or portly. Botero’s argument is that the great Renaissance painters used equivalent degrees of exaggeration as they learned to create the illusion of perspective on flat canvas. 

Such a technique is no less valid than the techniques of Picasso or Braque, breaking through such an  illusion to combine different perspectives at one time.

So, my first question, gazing at the first sculpture in the Botero Square was

“Are these people deliberately fat as a sort of joke on my own cultural sensibilities and expectations or is he making  a more profound philosophical statement about  how we see each other?”  That was the question and  I have no answer except that he makes you smile. The sculptures nearly all have little hands and feet, large hips and firm majestic tummies.

They are fulsome people and there is no mistaking the message that they occupy space and a lot of it, which, after all is what we all do to a greater or lesser extent.

“The record price for Botero at auction is $4,320,000 USD for “Man on a Horse”, sold at Christie’s New York in 2022.”  So, what do I know? Boterismo is alive and well.  

If I were an artist and developed a style maybe I could  have retired to Monte Carlo if that was what I wanted. Apart from portraying middle class life and bullfighting, Botera can also be political. Police brutality lurks in his paintings. The horrors  of Abu Graib inspired a whole series of paintings, echoing his earlier paintings of the sufferings of Christ. Again, the technique of  filling out some of the characters’  proportions, creates difficult emotional and intellectual reactions. His parodies  of  specific Renaissance and Impressionist paintings jolt the sensibilities. In “The Death of Escobar”, the drug lord and leader of the Medellin Cartel, Botero explores a symbolic Medellin where Escobar, the  giant, dominates the landscape going down in a hail of bullets. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid? It’s a surprisingly small painting, carefully lit in a corner of a darkened room.

His Mona Lisa but she’s fun and healthy looking like most of his people are, except for Christ, who’s green. Haven’t worked that out yet.  Botero also paints oranges and all sorts of other subject matter. He’s amazingly prolific and interesting.

 

So, here we are. Safe in Torre 4, Departmento 1111 and the weather is sunny today.  I’ve been to the gym on the  ground floor and talked to my neighbor, an older lady …haltingly. There’s a jacuzzi, a lovely pool, a basketball court, and a table tennis room. All the mod cons of city living.   Security knows we are here as they have ordered taxis for us and notified Marney when she had groceries delivered as well as a package from Amazon. There’s a hotel patio next door with sun beds surrounded by a glass wall, depicting sunny tropical beach scenes.   Just what we needed after Belize.

Yesterday was Columbia’s run off Presidential election. I watched it on the main News Channel. They took it seriously. It was very emotional. This is a quotation from an editorial in a magazine I picked up, “Votar, un ejercicio de conciencia por Colombia”.  Not difficult to translate.  Ironically, the Mazda salesroom opposite us removed all its shiny cars to the back lot. Not sure why but maybe in case of riots. The Medellin district voted overwhelmingly for the right-wing candidate. The countryside voted largely for the leftist, Gustavo Petro, whose idealism about social justice may quickly meet a brick wall.

 

Our two black vultures disappeared, and the rain has stopped but thunder rumbles away in the distance. There are reports of flooding and loss of life in areas outside Medellin. Colombians are enjoying a national holiday. Vote on a Sunday and have a  holiday the next day. Makes sense to me. 

 

In the meantime. Who is laughing at who? You decide.  Surely, we also have leaders with big bodies, small hands and little penises?    Buen dia!

                               Marney Here… 

Botero was very interesting – I especially enjoyed his HUGE statues outside.   I kept thinking “I’ve seen this art before – but where?” Then I remembered I saw a couple of posters in Phoenix in My Sister’s attic over 20 years ago that resembled his work.  I have no idea who the artist was so I went online and…nothing I saw even looked close to Boero’s style (except silly cartoons) so I have to assume the posters were of his works.  (Of course I’m assuming they were just “posters” and not an original worth millions! ) The other thing I recall from that day at the Museum is sad – I saw a very thin sick woman lying on an opened cardboard box layered with papers under a tree sleeping.  I know there are homeless everywhere, including Phoenix, but somehow the fact that no one seemed to notice her and walked around her if they got too close was disturbing.  To me, it would be like seeing this woman under one of the dancing statues at the Herberger mid-day and nobody even noticing.

Election Day was interesting.  I couldn’t help but think of Trump (Hernandez seemed so much like him with a comb over and a reputation for insulting women). Petro, on the other hand, sounded like “good intentions” without a realistic plan. Petro won and so far there have been no protests.  Having said that, he wants to turn the cocaine fields into farmland for vegetables.  Hum…wonder what the cartels will make of that?

                               Petro left and Hernandez right

Anyway, I look forward to doing some shopping (besides groceries) and seeing the Museum of Modern Art along with the Basilica and of course…the cemetery…