Botero at the Katzen

Fernando Botero, "Abu Ghraib 72," oil on canvas

By Bonner Sale

This past winter vacation I was a guard at the Katzen Museum where Fernando Botero's Abu Ghraib painting/drawing collection was being shown. At first glance I felt the need to shed light on a subject as gruesome and venomous as torture but then I was left with the question of "by whom?" Who has the authorship on this subject? The subject being paintings depicting "Uncompromising graphic images by this Colombian painter express his outrage at the American-led torture of Iraqi insurgents" (this quote taken from the Katzen Museum's website).

This is where you can say problems start for this work. "Painter expresses outrage," but the paintings are not depictions of real events, they are expressions of when "Botero constructed each work after reading official reports of the atrocities and concentrated on the suffering and dignity of the victims rather than their tormentors." I am not sure if anyone has the authority to show those paintings with conviction without looking like a phony.

In no way am I disqualifying the tortures that the American led soldier did to the Iraqi insurgents, but I am worried about a painter who thinks that reading something in a newspaper means that they have a voice in what happened, and I am worried about who hears that voice. Putting America down is a clear and manifested gravy train that started when America started. So Botero is not winning any races there, he just spins it to ultra violence, which is a shame because the paintings' tour of the country won't be visiting any veteran hospital, but they will be touring art museums and colleges alike. This gives the painting tour the benefit that its audience will be well-knowing and well-receiving of the work. This makes it function as an account of Army monstrosity to faceless victims which has already been made a very popular subject. Usually when covering that subject the artist or creator has some correlation to the particular monstrosity other than reading about it in the news.

When 911 happened I remember the resurgence of patriotic items for sale. Botero's Abu Ghraib functions on that level of shameful manipulation as well, but it functions humorously to the people who didn’t buy the American flag bumper stickers.

The Best Show Yet, Or Why Haven’t There Been Better Ones?

Freya Grand, "Gulfoss," oil on canvas, 2002


By Jim Creckhorn

When I saw the work going up in the long hallway on the way to the Katzen Museum, I got really excited. The text for the show had not yet been posted, and I asked several people, “What is this work for? What is this show?” I was particularly excited to see work by some artists with whom I was familiar only from online encounters (Suzanna Fields, Susan Jamison, and Rosemarie Fiore, to name a few).

I soon learned that this body of work was for the Washington Project for the Arts Annual Art Auction Gala, which is on display in conjunction with a small show on the first floor of the museum, “Selections from the WPA ArtFile.” In viewing this (tiny) show, my favorite works were by Betsy Shaw who created small block paintings, which projected from the wall. Shaw’s paintings looked like they might deal with microorganisms as subject, and I was interested in the way she painted the sides of the paintings, emphasizing the paintings’ identities as objects. I also enjoyed the mysterious narrative I tried to create as the result of looking at Freya Grand’s “Gullfoss.”

So there were a few pieces in the museum that I spent time with, but I continued to find myself stopping to study several pieces in the hallway/Gala show. I had conversations with quite a few classmates and undergraduate students as well, about our excitement over and interest in the hallway art.

After a few days of this, I began to feel amused by the fact that the Katzen museum’s art I have been most interested in viewing was not even on display in the Katzen museum. I was amused by this, but I am starting to feel annoyed.

Frankly, I’m not a fan of the Katzen Museum. Since I’ve been a student at AU, my feelings about the museum have ranged from mild puzzlement to enraged befuddlement. “Why is this being shown here?” is a question I have asked myself on more than one occasion, and the few times I have actually voiced my concern, I have been met with something more or less along the lines of “He went to school with so-and-so,” or “She used to be a teacher here.”

Don’t get me wrong: Botero was a big deal. Botero was a HUGE deal… because he is Botero. And the subject matter of that show was particularly timely and important. That work was difficult to view, and I believe this was in line with the artist’s intent. But it was Botero, and he was making “Boteros.” I would have been more impacted by the show if Botero had chosen to create work focused on Abu Graib without his typically stylized figures. Had he not chosen to create such easily commodified work, I would have given more attention to the content of the show, and less to the artist, which would have seemed appropriate, BUT it was BOTERO.

To some degree, art appreciation is a matter of taste, so I realize I am commenting on my own sensibilities when I write that some of the shows in the museum since I have been at AU have just been god-awful. Why is it necessary to create large-size paintings using a grid of ovals to veil some sort of squiggly abstract expressionist wannabe conglomeration of paint blobs and spray paint and glitter? Okay, so maybe the artist wanted to see what would happen. Fine- much artmaking could be considered experimental in the sense that an artist “just wanted to see what would happen if” he or she made whatever. BUT why show it in a museum? How am I, as a viewer, supposed to interact with this work? “Wow, that’s a lot of ovals…” This is the kind of work that gives artists a bad name: it doesn’t look like anything, it’s not apparently about anything, and it’s ugly. Again, I ask, why show it in a museum?

“Claiming Space: Some American Feminist Originators” meant well, but it suffered for me, because I had so recently seen “WACK!” “Some” American feminist originators just weren’t enough, and I remember so many more examples of formally satisfying work represented by the “WACK!” show than by the Katzen’s exhibit. The main thing I recall about “Claiming Space” was a lot of ugly, flat paint. This is not to say that was all the show consisted of- hardly; however, this was my overall impression of the show, “ugly, flat paint” was my main memory. So once again, my complaint about the Katzen comes down to a matter of taste. (I much prefer beautiful flat paint to ugly flat paint.)

So we’ve had work that was not about anything and that was ugly, and we’ve had work that was about really important things that was ugly. Is this part of the Katzen’s mission statement as a museum: challenge viewers’ aesthetic values so much that they don’t want to look anymore? Though they didn’t even really want to look in the first place? Actually, Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the Katzen Museum has quite a different vision for the space:

“…As we celebrate our second birthday, we are not only walking, we are running! This year we will present 26 exhibitions that mirror AU's aspirations to be the premier Washington-based, global university. Our programming puts the best art of our region in a national and international context. Our collections enable us to present the art history of Washington, while our Kunsthalle attitude brings the most provocative art of our time to our place.” (as quoted from the Katzen Museum’s website)

I would suggest that, if this is really the goal for the Katzen Museum, that the museum secure a more consistent collaboration with the WPA, because the shows of WPA-based work currently on display have been the most successful in coming anywhere near this statement of purpose out of anything I have seen (or have heard about) exhibited on AU grounds.

Unless “Kunsthalle” actually means “We don’t give a crap.”

Confusion at the Museum

By The Ancient Urn

What should be the mission of a university museum? For those not in possession of the collections and resources of Yale or Harvard, the question is a complicated one. Funding shows, attracting shows, patronage, and filling gallery space become balls to juggle more than for the wealthy and well-endowed.

These issues are well evidenced by this year’s round of shows at the Katzen Center, which have left this MFA student scratching her head in confusion over what this museum wants to do – how it wants to present itself, what work it wants to show, how it wants to build its reputation. The range of shows has been, quite simply, staggering - and not always in a good way. The Katzen’s strategy seems to be, generally, a “blockbuster” show in the first floor galleries, with secondary or lesser known artists exhibited simultaneously in the upper floor galleries. This does not always hold, as with the Fernando Botero show on the third floor that accompanied the “Claiming Space” show of feminist artists on the first floor last fall. The “piggybacking” of minor artists on big names, though, is a recurring pattern in the museum’s exhibition schedule. Sometimes this has worked wonderfully, as with the Irving Norman show that was the third component in the “Art of Confrontation” triad that featured Botero and “Claiming Space.” Having not known Norman’s work, I for one was delighted to discover his intricate and emotionally charged social realist world. In this case, an unknown artist of merit was elevated by being shown concurrent with more recognized big name artists.

However, the Katzen sometimes plays this relationship dangerously in the opposite direction. The current exhibition group is a perfectly dismaying curatorial example. Elena Sisto’s beautiful, substantive oil paintings on the first floor are paired with still lives by Ben Summerford on the second floor that are, at best, less than thrilling, and deeply disappointing after Sisto’s works. Yet the Katzen’s press statement posted on its website claims:

“Summerford remains well-known for his still-lifes, landscapes, and interiors of exquisite color and sensitivity.
”

At the risk of sounding mean, I would seriously contest that Summerford’s work displays “exquisite color and sensitivity.” Elena Sisto’s work does. Summerford’s does not: it drags down the museum’s image and raises, doubts about the integrity of an art institution that would choose to show this work. Will the Katzen continue to attract artists of Sisto’s and Botero’s caliber if it pairs them with such as Summerford? Summerford is a professor emeritus at AU and that is certainly a factor in the museum’s curatorial decision to show him. His work may have value that is not artistic, such as historical value surrounding his role in the D.C. art world. I would assert, though, that far better work will be seen in the upcoming shows of graduate student work at the museum in April…

So far, for me, the odd mix of shows at the Katzen has worked just barely in the museum’s favor – I am still giving it the benefit of the doubt that, as with Irving Norman, I just might discover a worthwhile and previously unknown artist when I stroll down to take in a new show. It remains to be seen whether this will hold up. The museum should think seriously about what its role is and what it wants its image to be in the D.C. art world and beyond.