Bota, 2018

This work was originally presented in Sol Calero’s solo exhibition Pica Pica at Kunstverein Düsseldorf. The exhibition’s point of departure takes place from the Venezuelan folk legend of the Pica Pica tree, the final resting place of a shepherd named José Zambrano. The tree, believed to be a site of granted miracles, became a popular place of pilgrimage, where people bring “milagritos” (Spanish for ‘little miracles’): small, often self-made objects that are representations of their wishes– be it love, a hand, or a house. The sculpture is a larger-than-life milagrito that inhabits the exhibition’s fable: inviting the viewer to project their own wishes and desires onto it.

Over the course of the past years, Calero has explored cultural codes, communal environments, and image production in Latin America and of the Latino communities living in migration. She transforms exhibition venues into immersive and colorful spaces of collective practice: the beauty salon, the dance class, the school, or even the setting of a telenovela, are all scenarios that she has recreated, exposing how the construction of a common paradigm is mediated by, and inseparable from, the social fabric where it is woven.