Bodegón XVIII
Plaster, limestone, iron oxide.
60 x 60 x 72 in / 152 x 152 x 182 cm.
Made in New York City in 2021.
A stack of spheres that cites the familiar form of fruits, vegetables, and seeds seen in informal and traveling fruit strands across the Global South and its diaspora.
This work is part of a series taking the name from the still-life tradition often associated with Spanish painting, Bodegón alludes to the way goods are organized in shops and markets. Formally, the series references ancient metalwork from the North Andean region that was commonly made in parts and then welded together to achieve the effect of inflation and weightlessness. Despite their direct connection to local fruit and staples like arepas and coca seeds, the pyramidal sculptures in this series embody the universal practice of categorically organizing provision.
The spheres here are based on glazed ceramics made in Medellin, yet “far from the earth and kiln” as Elena Ketelsen-González puts it, “the sculpture turns to an architectural and site-specific response to the East Broadway storefront. Suspended as the artist is uprooted, this plaster and limestone pyramid becomes a temporary answer to the work’s enduring question – when cultural origin is detranscendentalized into fiction; what are the forms universal to our collective being?”