Venezuelan artist Sol Calero is one of the four finalists nominated for the 2017 Nationalgalerie Award, an event that since 2000 has been recognizing artists under the age of 40 from anywhere around the world, who reside in Germany and who, through their works, have become influential and relevant in the art world. After a press conference at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin, where an exhibition with works by the four finalists was presented, Sol Calero declared feeling "very good" about this nomination because it represents "a sort of validation" of her work. The 35-year-old Venezuelan artist approaches in her work the "clichés stemming from anything related to the culture and representation of the Caribbean," with the goal of "evidencing and also questioning them." Titled "Amazonas Shopping Center," the exhibition Calero presents in Berlin is "a sort of retrospective" of the installations created by her in the last five years. In them, she approaches Latin American identity and its cultural codices. This "shopping center" consists of small stores that also represent social spaces usually managed by migrants, such as hair and nail salons, salsa studios, internet cafés, travel agencies, a currency exchange and a movie theater, some of which will be intermittently active during the exhibition. According to Calero, who left Venezuela at 17 and studied art in Europe, it is a "very personal" work that draws from her experience as a migrant herself in Europe. Once in Berlin, and as she began to implement her ideas as an artist, Calero realized that "the representation of Latin American art in Europe is highly exoticized." In other words, it is regarded as very exotic, or its presence is rare, even within the world of artistic education. Based on this "interest or preoccupation," she began to look for and replace the foundation of her artistic education and to "look more towards Latin America." It was then when she became aware of the many clichés associated with Caribbean culture. Nonetheless, she pointed out that clichés also contain some element of truth in them, like the approach to color, the space and the natural world, something that, she added, "is also not accepted in contemporary art," as it is even considered "almost in bad taste" or "discredited," as it occurs with the use of color. The exhibition will remain open until January 14, 2018. It also includes works by the other artists nominated: Iman Issa (Egypt, 1979), Jumana Manna (United States, 1987), and Agnieszka Polska (Poland, 1985). The winner of the 2017 Nationalgalerie Award will be announced on October 20. A solo show of the work by the winner is also part of the award.