There are several courtyards in the museum itself, making it a very pleasant place to visit.
While I am not a huge fan of Botero, it was great to see such a large collection of his work in addition to what we saw while in Bogota. I find the fact that he lived through the volence and upheaval of the last 50 years in colombia, but that the majority of his works on display were portraits and still lifes strange. Many other cnemporary artists adress this directly, I am not sure that I could have been so seemingly disengaged from it. However, perhaps that is the point, as he depicts a side of everyday Colombian life that provides a counterpoint to the violence we, as foreigners, tend to focus on.
There were some works that addressed the violence, like this one of the killing of Pablo Escobar and another of a carbomb going off.
This is a famous historical painting from called Horizons from the early 1900s, depicting and romanticizing the hopes and dreams of the new class of farmers and rural communities as they expanded into the interior of the country, much like the early pioneers and settlers of the American West.
This next one is contemporary and shares the same name. It expands the view of the original to include a plane, fumigating the planted valley below. This showing how, after colonizing the forests and developing the country, farmers are now being pushed out of these homes by the widespread use of toxic fumigation, which, while meant to target coca growers, actually kills everything in its path, forcing them to abandon the homes and regions they have worked so hard to develop.
This one is a mural as you enter the museum and is a discussion of the effcts of the oil industry on Colombia.
A Botero statue:
A cool painting of a flower!
Coca Cola anyone? Interesting that Coca-cola used to use that so maligned plant in its recipe, and is still widely consumed here and everywhere - it has played a contradictory role in the history of Colombia.
