Botero and Abu Ghraib

There's an artist named Fernando Botero who's well-known for his paintings of cute chubby people. He's made a very lucrative career of them. His paintings normally have all the emotional depth of a Hallmark card, but sell like crazy.

Botero has now done a series of paintings on the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. You can see them on the Marlborough Gallery web site. Frankly, I'm impressed. He takes his signature chubby people, but this time they're not cute: they're tormented, anguished, and in pain. The works address a deep and painful subject. There is a tremendous amount of feeling in these pictures. In stepping out from his normal shtick, Botero has hit a home run.

But Botero hasn't gone far enough. Frankly, none of us have. There have been quite a few artists who have criticized President Bush, the Iraq war, and American excesses at Abu Ghraib. I've been one of them. But in seeing these works, I'm struck by the fact that it's always the United States that's the subject of criticism. Where is the criticism of the Sunni and Shi'ite death squads? Time magazine just had an article on Abu Deraa, a Shi'ite warlord who's responsible for thousands of Iraqi deaths. One of his favorite techniques is to run a power drill into a live victim's head. Where, I ask you, is the art world's criticism of Abu Deraa? Where is the criticism of Putin, who's rolling back all the democratic gains that Russia has made since the collapse of the USSR? Where is the criticism of Hezballah for the war they started with Israel? I'm no fan of Israel, but the widespread condemnation of Israel for the destruction in southern Lebanon ignored the fact that Hezballah did half of it. You can pick almost any conflict around the globe, and artists probably aren't doing anything about it, except to criticize the U.S.

And as much as I can't stand Bush, he's right when he complains about the criticism of America over Abu Ghraib and other atrocities. If we're going to condemn atrocities, we need to condemn them ALL: American, Shi'ite, Sunni, Serb, Sudanese, all of them.

So Botero's work is great, as far as it goes. It just doesn't go far enough.