Artist Sol Calero Goes Travelling in Latin America | TateShots

Meet Sol Calero, an artist exploring themes of representation and identity through brightly coloured, immersive installations.

The Berlin-based Venezuelan artist Sol Calero uses visual clichés of Latin America in her work, as seen by the ‘Western eye’. Her installations are filled with colourful patterns and textiles which give the space a surreal quality. Calero aims to ‘shake the space so people forget where they are’.

Calero’s new installation at Tate Liverpool, ‘El Autobús’ 2019, is inspired by a trip to Latin America. There, richly decorated buses are a popular means of transport. For locals, the bus is a necessary part of the daily commute, while tourists use them in pursuit of exotic adventure. Calero explores this tension in an imaginary audio-visual guided tour.

Despite growing up in Venezuela, ‘it has nothing to do with the reality that is the country right now,’ says the artist. ‘I’m from a place but that place doesn’t exist anymore’. Travelling to Latin America ‘was quite a shock’ for the artist, who found herself ‘also going with a different perception of what the place was.’

For Calero, the opportunity to create art as a female Latin American artist ‘is what keeps me moving.’ ‘Not everyone is given the opportunity, which is quite unfair’, says Calero. ‘Because if we were all making more art, if we were all thinking more creatively, I like to think it’s maybe a better world.’

See Sol Calero’s El Autobús at Tate Liverpool until 10 November 2019: https://bit.ly/2X8bzXq

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