Maria Villote
High Horse, 2018
Wood, Coconut Shells, Whitening Beauty Soap, Western-Style Horizontal Cowboy Spur, Leather
Courtesy of the artist

This work is on loan for the exhibition, Living Here, at the Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, June 20 - December 20, 2025

High Horse resembles a kudkuran ng niyog, a device used for manually grating the meat out of niyog, or mature coconuts. Coconuts play a major role in life throughout the Philippines, where different parts of the tree have historically been used for food, medicine, shelter, and fuel, among other things. Coconut oil is one of the nation’s primary exports. Maria Villote uses this culturally charged form to unite a number of suggestions that, together, become a commentary on the difficulty of decolonizing the mind. She replaces the spiked disc with a Western cowboy spur, while the coconut flakes become a heap of skin-whitening soap. (Advertised in the Philippines and within the Filipino diaspora, these soaps promise to deliver “natural fairness for your face and body” with ingredients that often include acidic chemicals.) Speaking about the work, she points out that “coconut” can be used as a derogatory term for people of color who are accused of betraying their cultural identity and becoming “white on the inside.” Understanding and undoing that process is likened to a physical grind.