Late Colombian artist Botero honored with open-air sculpture exhibition in Rome

ROME – The daughter of late Colombian artist Fernando Botero helped transform the streets and squares of the Italian capital into an open-air museum to display eight of his father’s famous voluminous and extravagant works. sculptures.

The exhibition was organized in honor of Botero, who passed away on September 15, 2023, aged 91, in Monaco, where he maintained a studio. The artist also lived for many years in the Italian city of Pietrasanta, in the Tuscany region, where he was buried next to his third wife, the artist Sophia Vari.

“I’m sure my father would be very moved because Italy has always been like a second home country for him,” his daughter, Lina Botero, told private Italian television TV2000.

Botero created all of the statues displayed in the exhibition while he was in Italy. His affection for Italy came in part from his artistic affinity with the Renaissance masters.

Although his imposing bronze sculptures have been displayed in parks and avenues in many European and Latin American capitals, this is the first time they have been seen on this scale in Rome. The exhibition ends on October 1st.

Art lovers can follow a Botero trail starting in the central park of Villa Borghese, where the Lying Woman looks across Rome’s rooftops toward St. Peter’s Basilica from the Pincio Terrace. In Piazza del Popolo, the sculptures Adam and Eve face each other. Horse with Bridle is on Rome’s central shopping street, Via del Corso, and the trip ends near Piazza di Spagna with the Seated Woman.

“We can tell from a distance that they are Boteros,” said Sara Belloni, a resident who paused to photograph Adam and Eve from below. “The aesthetic is completely opposite to what you usually see out there. Where thin is beautiful, he does exactly the opposite.”

Lorenzo Zichichi, who represents one of the exhibition’s co-organizers, said it would be a mistake to call the sculptures fat.

“Botero always said he never painted a fat woman and never sculpted a fat woman,” said Zichichi, president of publishing house Il Cigno, which presented the exhibition together with the Fernando Botero Foundation and BAM art events. What fascinated him was the volume.”