Beautifully depressing

Fernando Botero's paintings were on exhibit in the Doe library at Berkeley. The subject: torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib at the hands of American soldiers.

Botero has attempted to capture the event which the American government is all set to erase from its memory. The government has ordered that the prison be brought down.

The hall had a melancholic atmosphere. No one spoke throughout. Not even in whispers. I can not describe the paintings. The words would only be too crude. It was quite depressing to stay in the exhibition hall. I realized it after quite a while. And I realize now how depressing, how sickening, it could have been to undergo such torture, when it was so depressing to stand there, and so difficult to write now about the paintings.

After a successful display in Europe, there was no museum in the US which offered space to Botero. Indeed, Berkeley is the first museum exhibit of the paintings in the US. As I walked out, I realized that the exhibition was open to everyone. Nevertheless, the fact that most museums turned down the offer does demonstrate the parochial, almost escapist attitude that most of the American institutes have.

A society is healty if it can take criticism. If it can look inside and find faults. And I see a possiblity of a healty society by the popularity the exhibition had. By the fact that there was no malicious attempt while the exhibits were on display.

Which brings me to my second point. Could such an exhibition have happened in India? I think Indians are more open to criticism. Indeed, the greatest cynics of the India Shining story are Indians themselves. But the attitude undergoes a total change when it comes to certain beliefs. Religion, early leaders, religious heads, to criticize them is akin to attacking people personally. Surprisingly, some criticisms which non-secular countries in the world are able to digest, there are uproars in India. The Da Vinci code, the Satanic Verses. Or sometimes, the zeal to protect those beliefs is such that the protestors miss the whole point. The criticism of Gandhigiri, and of Gandhi himself (I am sure Gandhi wouldn't have agreed with the protestors. Or their methods.). Why are we so averse to differences in opinion? Why are we so insecure? Are we being escapists, too?


Update : A university article : http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2007/03/27_botero.shtml
says fifteen thousand people visited the exhibit while it was on display. Commendable, isn't it?