Big Chance

Some hundred works from the artist’s own collection will go on display at the Colorado Springs Fine Art Center when The Baroque World of Fernando Botero, a touring exhibition, opens with a reception May 29 from 5 to 8 p.m. And when CSFAC spokesman Charlie Snyder says this will be a “ginormous” show, he isn’t kidding. After all, any exhibit of works by Botero, whose exaggeratedly corpulent, sometimes whimsical human figures are his signature, can’t help but be huge. Particularly in bronze, these are formidable, big-boned, larger than life and literally two tons of fun.

The Colombian artist grew up in a well-mannered, traditional society and later attended the Academy of San Fernando in Madrid, where he learned to incorporate political stories and points of view into his paintings by observing the works of Velázquez and Goya. More recently, he’s devoted his skills to a series inspired by the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib in Iraq. But this retrospective, which continues through August 16, reveals a more comprehensive overview of Botero’s career, through a very personal selection of drawings, paintings and sculpture, some of which have never before been seen publicly.

CSFAC is located at 30 West Dale Street in Colorado Springs, and is open daily except Mondays; admission to the Botero retrospective is $15 or $25 for tonight’s reception (members always free). For more information, go to www.csfineartscenter.org or call 719-634-5581.
Tuesdays-Sundays. Starts: May 29. Continues through Aug. 16, 2009