Bootero's bounty comes to Washington.

• Author: Kiernan, James Patrick
• Position: Fernando Botero, Washington, D.C.

On September 24, nineteen monumental bronze sculptures by the Colombian artist Fernando Botero were installed along the north side of Constitution Avenue, between 15th and 18th streets, as part of the twentieth-anniversary celebration of the Art Museum of the Americas. Ranging from three to twelve feet in height or length, and weighing between two thousand and five thousand pounds, Botero's prodigious and distinctive figures include a reclining nude of seductive and delicate corpulence and a muscular, protuberant horse, which would excite the envy of Trojans. Another sculpture, a massive infant's hand ten feet tall and weighing a ton, seems to frame the White House between its chubby, closing fingers.

Since the very public exhibition of these voluptuous and whimsical sculptures opened, Botero in Washington has drawn crowds of the curious and awed. The bronzes, which remain on exhibition until November 1, have been presented by the Art Museum of the Americas as a salute to the citizens and visitors of Washington. It is fitting that the Art Museum of the Americas sponsor Washington's first view of Botero's voluminous figures, since the OAS first introduced Botero to U.S. audiences in its own galleries forty years ago.

"Placing the sculptures in a nontraditional setting not known for art will reveal an unexpected surprise to passersby, encouraging them to rediscover Washington's famous cityscape," stated Secretary General Cesar Gaviria. Such popular access to art "ennobles the human spirit, enhances the city dweller's experience, and intensifies the relationship between public space and people's every day lives," continued Gaviria.

The Museum of the Americas was established by the OAS in 1976 to heighten the awareness of the art of the Americas in the United States. The museum's mission is the study and exhibition of works of recognized artists of North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. Its permanent collection of twentieth-century art is one of the most important of its kind in the United States, with close to two thousand objects in varying media, including painting, sculpture, prints, and drawing.

The current outdoor exhibition of Botero's rotund human and animal figures has already enchanted viewers in cities in the United States, Europe, Japan, and Latin America. Over the past decade, the bronzes have graced Paris's Champs-Elysees, Madrid's Paseo de Recoletos, Michigan Avenue in Chicago, and Park Avenue in New York.

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