Journal

The journal on portikus.de operates as an extension of the exhibitions at Portikus themselves. A wide spectrum of contributions including essays, interviews, fictional writing or photo- and video-contributions provide a closer look on artistic interests and reflect on topics that concern our society, politics and culture.

Fermented Present

Franciska Nowel Camino
2023-02-24

Log Diversion

Liberty Adrien, Carina Bukuts, Rand Elarabi, Nils Fock, Maria Guhr, Rabika Hussain, Mary Bom Kahama, Blaykyi Kenyah, Hanna Launikovich, Nelli Lorenson, Hemansingh Lutchmun, francisco m.v., Hilda Stammarnas, Elsa Stanyer, Amina Szecsödy, Yuxiu Xiong
2022-06-23

In the framework of his exhibition Pierre Verger in Suriname Willem de Rooij invites the artists Razia Barsatie, Ansuya Blom, Ruben Cabenda, and Xavier Robles de Medina to show their works on the Portikus website. With the program Flux und Reflux – A Selection of Moving Images Portikus' audience is introduced to moving image made by four contemporary artists who have a relationship to Suriname. Die Videoarbeiten werden jeweils für zwei Wochen online verfügbar sein:

10.06.–24.06.2021

Xavier Robles de Medina

Ai Sranang, 2017
Music: Lieve Hugo, "Oeng Booi" and "Blaka Rosoe"

According to the Transnational Decolonial Institute, decoloniality endorses interculturality, “the celebration by border dwellers of being together in and beyond the border.”

Ambivalence is the true sentiment of the “diaspora”—as much as we hate to admit it, we love the feeling of being recognized, not as celebrities but as part of a “lineage,” as extended family. Jill Casid writes that “while, since the nineteenth century, diaspora has been used to refer specifically to the dispersion of a people, imagined as a tribe or family unit, diaspora also signifies the scattering of seed.”

Stuart Hall has also interrogated the term noting its meaning is rooted in colonially constructed binaries, of the “original” and the “copy,” and of “inside” and “outside.” It’s telling that our national flower, the Fajalobi, is only a recent transplant from India.


(Extracts from Xavier Robles de Medina's essay “Preface”)

Ai Sranang is a short montage film that examines Surinamese history and politics since its independence from the Netherlands in 1975. Through its fragmentation, the montage alludes to the complexities of diaspora as it stands in relation to identity. The tropes of in-between-ness and travel are an extension of this metaphor, yet they recall also ideas of leadership and government. The image of a “swinger” bus completely running amuck by a reckless driver extends its metaphoric space beyond the Surinamese context to the events that have defined a more global neoliberal era. Robles de Medina has been building an extensive collection of found images that is central to his artistic practice as he appropriates, edits, re-contextualizes and transforms them.

Xavier Robles de Medina (*1990 in Paramaribo) is a visual artist based in Berlin. He graduated from Goldsmiths, University of London. In 2015 he was nominated for the Prix de Rome Visual Arts in the Netherlands, and was shortlisted for the Dutch Royal Award for Modern Painting. Recent solo exhibitions include SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, Another Mobile Gallery in Bucharest, Praz-Delavallade, Los Angeles and Paris, Readytex Art Gallery in Paramaribo and Catinca Tabacaru Gallery, New York. Robles de Medina has been selected to participate in Senegal's fourteenth Dakar Biennale in 2022.


Portrait image: Sascia Reibel

Website: http://xavierroblesdemedina.com


Upcoming artists in this series:

17.06.–01.07.2021
Ruben Cabenda

24.06.–08.07.2021
Ansuya Blom

01.07.–15.07.2021
Razia Barsatie

In the Mood for Bengawan Solo

Paula Kommoss, Arin Rungjang
2018-09-17

In Obscurity

Carina Bukuts
2017-12-21

Textile as a medium of contemporary art

Olga Inozemtceva
2017-05-18

Between Standstill and Movement

Malina Lauterbach, Maximilian Wahlich
2017-01-29

The Body, the Pedestal

Marina Rüdiger
2016-05-31

H[gun shot]ow c[gun shot]an I f[gun shot]orget?

Lawrence Abu Hamdan
2016-04-19

Mutant Creature Making Books

Manuel Cirauqui, María Mur Deán
2022-10-20

Online Conversation

Angela Lühning, Carl Haarnack, Oliver Hardt & Willem de Rooij
2021-05-20

L'Esprit—Absolventenausstellung 2020

Louisa Behr und Johanna Weiß
2020-09-18

Tails & Heads

Levi Easterbrooks, Janique Préjet Vigier
2018-02-06

Portikus XXX Summer Screening Program

Levi Easterbrooks
2017-09-25

WE THE PEOPLE – Upholding Liberty

Cosima Anna Grosser
2017-04-25

"Oh my god, this is another kind of code language!"

Amy Sillman, Bernard Vienat
2016-08-17

A Narrative for the Body: Shahryar Nashat’s Present Sore

Isla Leaver-Yap, Shahryar Nashat, Fabian Schöneich
2016-04-22