ROMA.- The daughter of the late Colombian artist Fernando Botero has helped to convert the streets and squares of Roma in an open-air museum to display eight of his father’s famous, voluminous sculptures.
The exhibition was organized as a tribute to Botero, who died on September 15, 2023, at the age of 91, in Monaco, where he had a studio. The artist also lived for many years in the Italian town of Pietrasanta, in Tuscany, where he was buried next to his third wife, the artist Sophia Vari.
“I’m sure my father would be very excited because Italy has always been like a second home for him,” Lina Botero told Italian private television channel TV2000.
Botero created all the sculptures of the exhibition during his stay in the country. His affection for Italy was due in part to his artistic affinity with the Renaissance masters.
Botero’s work for the first time in Rome
Although his imposing bronze sculptures can be seen in parks and avenues in many European and Latin American capitals, this is the first time they can be seen on this scale in Rome. The exhibition closes on October 1.
Art lovers can follow a Botero itinerary that starts in the central Villa Borghese park, where Woman lying down look out over the rooftops of Rome towards St. Peter’s Basilica from the Pincio viewing platform. In Piazza del Popolo, the sculptures Adn y Eva they are face to face. Horse with bridle This is the capital’s shopping street par excellence, Via del Corso, and the walk ends near the Plaza de España with Sit woman.
Fernando Botero’s Sleeping Venus-ap.jpg
AP/Gregorio Borgia
Sculpture Horse with bridle by Fernando Botero-ap.jpg
AP/Gregorio Borgia
You can tell from afar that they are Boteros, said Sara Belloni, a resident who stopped to take a photo of Adn y Eva from below. The aesthetics are completely opposite to what is normally seen. Where thin is beautiful, he does exactly the opposite.
Lorenzo Zichichi, a representative of one of the co-organizers of the exhibition, pointed out that it would be a mistake to describe the sculptures as fat.
“Botero has always said that he never painted a fat woman and that he never sculpted a fat woman,” said Zichichi, president of the publishing house Il Cigno, which presented the exhibition together with the Fernando Botero Foundation and BAM Eventi darte. “What fascinated him was the volume.”
FUENTE: AP