American University Museum - Significant Exhibitions

Significant Exhibitions

• November 6 - December 30, 2007 - Abu Ghraib. The painter Fernando Botero created a series featuring uncompromising, graphic images that expressed his outrage at the United States-led abuse and torture of Iraqi insurgent prisoners. The Paris-based Botero, known for his exaggeratedly rotund figures in benign social satires, unveiled these controversial works in Europe in 2005. The American University Museum was the first museum venue in the United States of the Abu Ghraib series. While a departure from Botero's usual subjects, the series related to work he did that portrayed violence by the drug cartel in his native Colombia. After reading official reports about Abu Ghraib, he concentrated in his works on the suffering and dignity of the victims.

• 2008 - Noche Crist: A Romanian Revelation. Noche Crist was Washington art’s unofficial doyenne of decadence for almost 60 years. Born in Romania in 1909, Noche moved to Washington, D.C., in 1947 after World War II. She lived and worked there until her death in 2004. A re-creation of her boudoir was one of the installations featured in the 2008 posthumous retrospective.