The signature on the sign of a museum to my right has caught my eye - 'Botero'. Where do I recognise that signature from? I know where I know that signature from. He's the fat Venus guy. Botero's Venus, or "The Fat Lady", as she's so fondly known in my old office, sits in Exchange Square, my old summer drinking and smoking haunt. Some light nostalgia is enough to motivate me.
After an hour of touring the museum where Botero's various works are proudly centre stage, I've come to the very certain conclusion that Botero was a talentless, overrated artist, but maybe a mediocre cartoonist. Taking the piece as a collection, I'd go so far as to call it shit. Every picture is in exactly the same style, depicting a fat chick, or fat guy or fat guy on a fat horse. It's funny for a minute, but the initial novelty of fat stuff quickly wears thin. Even the most convoluted circles of art-twats couldn't mount a defense for this arrant crap.
The museum includes some of Picasso's dross, presumably to improve Botero's work by comparison, but I'm pretty sure Picasso was often just taking the piss.
Come the afternoon, I'm back on the street with the address of my pal who lives somewhere on this street, Calle 23. Bogota's road system seems to have been designed with a perfect respect for logic, then handed over to some mad bastard to put up. I know I'm lost when the surroundings of the street subtly transform into a weed scented slum. When a tranvestite dominatrix passes and doesn't much stick out from a mid-afternoon crowd, rife with aggressively dressed prostitutes and the types of deviants who enjoy the company of disease-riddled streetwalkers, the feeling of being lost is quickly replaced by one of fear. Eyes forward. Fist clenched. Walk fast.
No comments:
Post a Comment