Ars Longa

There was a lot of hand-wringing right after 9/11 about whether artists would ever be able to speak to the tragedy of our age, and given our inward-looking, hermetically-sealed, self-absorbed and vapid art, no wonder. But outside Fortress America, the picture is much brighter.

Today there was a wonderful article in the New York Times about a new series of paintings and sketches by Fernando Botero, one of the world's greatest living arists. The works, now on exhibit in Rome, depict the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Of course, seeing Botero's usually plump and contented Bourgeoisie drawn and bloodied somehow makes it all the worse. (Also don't miss this installation, "El Perro," from ARCO 05.)

Of course, things aren't completely hopeless here: there's Made You Think (aka the Poo Project), out of San Francisco, and the AFSC's "Eyes Wide Open." And back in February there was what sounds like a fascinating seminar at the Getty Museum on the Politics of Portraits featuring Arianna Huffington, guerrilla poster artist Robbie Conal, and royal portrait painter Richard Stone. On the other hand, there was the exhibition at the Glass Curtain Gallery at Columbia College in Chicago, Axis of Evil: The Secret History of Sin, where the medium was the postage stamp sheet. The work depicting Bush with a gun pointed at his head was investigated by the Secret Service, because, hey, it might be a clue.