Sol Calero at Gillmeier Rech. Taken with Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
In our “Me, Myself and Art” series, in collaboration with Samsung Galaxy Alpha, Sleek takes an immersive approach to the art world. Via the medium of writer and stylist Ella Plevin, and her shiny new Samsung Galaxy Alpha, we bring the art world to you in a uniquely personalised way, utilising performance, selfies and video to present new perspectives on the art scene.
I’m back in Germany and the weather has me ready to crawl into sweatpants until 2015 but I wanted to see Berlin-based Venezuelan artist Sol Calero’s show at Gillmeier Rech so yesterday I braved the grey skies to pedal over to Schöneberg. Someone normally dear to me has been suggesting it’s a “great time” to book flights to a beach somewhere on the coast of western Africa because of “Ebola prices”. For now I can make do with the implied sunshine at Calero’s warm and generous installation.
Sol Calero at Gillmeier Rech. Taken with Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
Sol Calero at Gillmeier Rech. Taken with Samsung Galaxy Alpha.
I picked a good day to go – not only was gallerist Verena Gillmeier available to fast-fast-slow step me through the show but the artist herself dropped in for a Frieze debrief and a quick #SleekAlphaSelfie. Her tropical cyber café installation at the Laura Bartlett gallery booth was popular with fair attendees last week and Sol told me her proud father is continuing to send her new links to tweets and articles about her Frieze booth from across the globe.
Upskirt shot taken with Samsung Galaxy Alpha
The work at Gillmeier Rech observes the Salsa phenomenon: often thought of as a pan-Latin American tradition, the music was actually conceived in New York’s East Harlem during the 1970s. The sound grew from elements combed from Cuban Son, mambo, Latin Jazz and Afro-Cuban music (occasionally mixed with rock and funk components) but provided a ‘safe’ umbrella term to mass market Latin music amid Cold War tensions between Cuba and the United States. It’s a complicated testament to the social power of music within racial integration and cultural definition for immigrants.
As part of the exhibition, Calero threw a mojito-fuelled late night dance party at Berlin Salsa school ‘La Mambita’. Photos of the night taken by the school’s in-house photographer are also installed at Gillmeier Rech, showing familiar faces (wearing expressions ranging through delight to exasperation) learning unfamiliar dance steps. Like the Salsa music playing in the background, Calero’s tropical aesthetization of the space is a construction that borrows and fuses elements from a variety of distinct traditions, at once celebrating and questioning the nature of cultural export and appropriation.
Text von Ella Plevin
For more from our Me, Myself and Art series and to win your own Samsung Galaxy Alpha, check out our #SleekAlphaSelfies contest
Check out previous entries here on our #SleekAlphaSelfie Tumblr
“SALSA” by Sol Calero is open from 2-6 until this Sunday, 27 October 2014. See more images below: