Sol Calero

Las seis ventanas (The Six Windows) is a site-specific immersive installation by Sol Calero. A platform offers a view of a wall painting with decorative elements from classical architecture. Mounted on the wall painting are six smaller paintings representing windows. The window paintings suggest a landscape on the far side, a colourful and vibrant terrain where nature has taken control.

Inspired by part of the museum’s architecture – a nine-sided pavilion – Sol Calero explores ideas relating to panoramic painting. A popular genre in the 1800s, the panoramas consisted of paintings that were 360 degrees in the round and presented in purpose-built rooms. Surrounded by such a painting, viewers could experience the illusion of being inside a real landscape. The idea of the panorama was to bring the experience of a place or a historical event to people at a time when few could travel long distances. In a similar way, Las seis ventanas takes you to a different place – one that perhaps triggers associations, dreams or expectations.

An interest in participation and collaboration run throughout Sol Calero’s artistic practice. You are invited to take part of the exhibition by creating mosaic pieces made in workshops throughout the duration of the exhibition.

Sol Calero (b. 1982, Caracas, Venezuela) is best known for making spatial installations consisting of paintings, mosaics, and ceramic and architectural elements. These often create a framework for social situations the public are invited to engage in, in order to explore different forms of social interaction. Underlying the playful and colourful expression are political themes relating to preconceptions about other cultures, stereotypes, tourism and notions of the exotic. In earlier works, Calero has explored the hair salon, the travel agency, the bus and the canteen as places where communities are created and ideas about other people are both produced and can be challenged.

Sol Calero – Las seis ventanas is part of the exhibition series NONA at Stavanger Art Museum. Aimed especially at children and young people, the series explores the nature of participation, collaboration and performativity in contemporary art. The exhibitions invite the public to participate in diverse creative processes. The aim is to forge stronger bonds between seeing and doing and to have visitors gain hands-on experience with diverse artistic methods and techniques.

We welcome visitors of all ages to experience the exhibition. Children must be accompanied by an adult. The participatory element of making mosaics is perhaps best suited for visitors from 7 years and up, but younger visitors should also be able to participate with a little assistance.

Image: Sol Calero, Las seis ventanas (The Six Windows), 2023. Photo: Oddbjørn Erland Aarstad