Edgar Calel's Ritual Earthwork at Sculpture Center

Maya Kaqchikel artist Édgar Calel presents his first institutional solo exhibition at Sculpture Center in New York, on view through 7 August. The installation, titled B’alab’äj (Jaguar Stone) (2023), features a large mound of soil shaped with precision across the gallery floor. This earthwork is embedded with flickering candles and rough-hewn rocks, elements drawn from Kaqchikel Maya spiritual practice as offerings to ancestors. Scattered agricultural tools like hoes and wooden machetes are included, evoking prayers for a fruitful growing season. Cleanly carved furrows in the soil form patterns resembling glyphs, with the letters K, I, and T appearing multidirectionally. The word 'kit' recurs in Calel's work, referencing a sound his late grandmother used to call birds, and recorded birdsong from his Guatemalan hometown plays in the gallery. The installation's maintenance involves daily candle lighting by museum staff, blending ceremonial and functional aspects. Unlike Walter De Maria's permanent New York Earth Room (1977), Calel's work emphasizes themes of mortality and change. It alludes to Maya spiritual guides who, due to historical persecution by Spanish conquistadors and the Guatemalan state, often keep their identities private. By transposing these spiritual traditions into a gallery setting, Calel shifts the responsibility of representation from his community to himself, avoiding ethnographic explanation in favor of contemplative engagement.