The Perfect Ever (or how oil discovered humans) (2021-23) carefully re-edits scenes from the Mexican film ‘Las Rosas del Milagro’ (‘The Miracle Roses’, 1960) to hijack the image of the Virgin Guadalupe with an eerie and viscous entity. The original film – acquired by the artist from a Catholic shop — tells the story of how Saint Diego encountered Mary. This work takes advantage of the rudimentary graphics of the source material, to explore the notion that speculative characters in Hollywood films resemble an audiovisual miracle by exceeding the reality of the set. Thus, Ramírez manufactures his own Capitalist marvel by radically shifting the narrative, to feature a human character lost in the hill, where he perpetually encounters a black and dripping orb across different locations. As the title suggests, Ramírez proposes this is the story of how oil discovered humans, endowing the substance with the desire to be worshipped. He achieves this effect by editing the original film down to the apparition scenes, eliminating dialogue and isolating the expressions of ‘awe’ performed by the actor. The result is what the artist describes as ‘an ambiguous and sinister mirage that points to the palpable yet comical darkness of a divinity briefly visiting Earth… Capitalism exceeds the reality of earth, it is a dark miracle’.
