Yvette Mayorga, The Magic Tchotchke, 2026; Limited Edition Sculpture

**This sculpture will launch Tuesday, March 31st. Please sign up for our newsletter for early access or email hello@artforchange.com to inquire**

Yvette Mayorga’s multidisciplinary practice casts visions of intricate worlds, by fusing Rococo iconography, contemporary images of militarization, confectionary aesthetics, and consumer objects. Shaped by her experience as a first-generation Latinx artist, the artist responds to utopian visions of immigration and belonging, while aiming to disrupt the art historical canon. In addition to being exhibited at notable institutions around the world, her work has been the subject of solo presentations at Museo de Arte de Zapopan, Mexico; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; and The Momentary, Bentonville, AR. Based in Chicago, Mayorga also has work in the permanent collections that include the Smithsonian Institution’s Renwick Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY; DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, M.A., among others. 

The Magic Tchotchke is a sculpture edition that riffs on antique tchotchkes from the Rococo era, inspired by the artist’s monumental installation Magic Grasshopper in Times Square. Mayorga has coined the term “Latinxoco” to describe her approach—an aesthetic language that merges Latinx identity with Rococo ornamentation as a way of interrogating lived-in, adorned domestic spaces. Intended as an intimate version that can be collected and kept forever, the work features three figures aboard a carriage, dreamt by Mayorga as a fantastical vessel that pays tribute to the physical and personal journeys undertaken in pursuit of the American Dream.

Contemporary culture is layered throughout the sculpture in details that include vernacular objects and phrases rendered in a style that evokes gold nameplate jewelry. The word “BYE” at the center of the carriage becomes both defiance and departure: a feminist proclamation of leave me alone, while simultaneously asserting the will to remain present and fully here—even while moving across landscapes. Cast in varying shades of hyper-feminine pink, The Magic Tchotchke also bears a textured exterior that mimics the sugary confections baked by women immigrants from the Latinx community. In the words of the artist, “I want the piece to feel as though it has lived within a domestic space, evoking nostalgic memories of the ceramic and plastic figurines that adorned our parents’ and grandparents’ homes.”

Of ART FOR CHANGE’s initiative to support ICIRR, Mayorga notes, “Art has the power to document history and offer an alternative narrative—one that honors the lives, labor, and stories that are too often erased. Supporting an organization dedicated to immigrant and human rights is deeply meaningful to me, especially right now.”