Sergi

“the desert lies at the end of an oil pipeline.” Karlos Gil: The Centre Cannot Hold On view at @radius.cca until May 31 @karlos.gil A journey through the geological and cosmic deep time of oil, THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD is a captivating cinematographic journey whereby the planet is a surface relentlessly perforated for the extraction of fossil fuels. A hybrid between theoretical treatise, a documentary, a sci-fi film, geopolitical demonology, and esoteric archeology, THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD is a telluric meditation on what Reza Negarestani—whose book Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials (2008) has greatly inspired the film—calls ungrounding: the process of degenerating a solid body—the Earth—by corrupting the coherency of its surfaces—oil drilling. From the esotericism of the desert to the constant puncture of the surface of Los Angeles; from the towering oil-fuelled skyscrapers of Abu Dhabi to the eclipsed sun over the Mauritanian desert, oil strings planetary narrations of collapse. Crude, slippery, and acrid: oil is the nonhuman enabler of the Anthropocene.  Furthering the journey to deep time and millenary geology, Gil also presents two heliographs belonging to the series Vortex (2025–ongoing). They consist of images of the interior of Icelandic hydrothermal volcanoes captured by means of heliography. Despite the difficulty in approaching them, they are increasingly targeted for the exploitation of mineral resources, renewable geothermal energy, and scientific research. The heliographs are an alchemical feat: by means of sunlight, they imprint that which sunlight does not reach. Vortex captures the billowing smoke clusters from the volcanoes mixed with colours produced by the lightwave differences in the Icelandic sky. Arresting and cryptic, Vortex approximates us to an aesthetic of deep time.  Travelling through landscapes of energy production, desertification, cosmic genesis, and ecological exhaustion, this exhibition beckons a sentient geological relationship to the world and an emotional contestation to the irreversible planetary configurations that extractivism is spearheading. Photography by Sander van Wettum (1-4) and me (5-8)

What kind of text does an exhibition inspire? I believe there is not one standard template that you can apply to all exhibitions, especially solos. I always like to ask myself: what kind of literary contribution does this exhibition need? Next to an introductory text that presents and situates an exhibition, how can text be produced to support, expand, complement, and honour artistic work? I find essayistic work a crucial, foundational aspect of the curatorial: it is a means to become knowledgeable, sharpen one’s point of view, and deepen the conversation around and reception of an artist’s work. I wrote a text to accompany the current solo exhibition by @karlos.gil that I’ve curated at @radius.cca , titled ‘The Centre Cannot Hold’, which features Karlos’ new film. This text is added as a fold inside the exhibition booklet. It is meant to mirror the artistic language of Karlos’ film and follow his inquiries into oil as a material, energetic, geopolitical, and ontological hegemon. I wanted the text to be synaesthetic, to theorise about oil whilst conveying its materialities and conjuring visceral, voluptuous images and metaphors. I had a great time revisiting Reza Negarestani’s ‘Cyclonopedia’ (which the Karlos draws a lot of inspiration from) and diving deep into demonology, cosmic nihilism, Deleuze and Guattari’s constructivism, necropolitics, and the like. At a time where oil has (again, but permanently really) become centrepiece in geopolitics and in media, it’s important to diversify how we can speak about it, and therefore world and be worlded by it. Beautiful graphic design and scans by @via_minhu ‘Karlos Gil: The Centre Cannot Hold’ is on view at RADIUS until May 31. Don’t miss it 🛢️

KARLOS GIL: THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD RADIUS presents a solo exhibition by Karlos Gil revolving around the premiere of his latest film, THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD. Join us for the opening on Saturday 7 March from 16.00 onwards! A journey through the geological and cosmic deep time of oil, THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD is a captivating cinematographic journey whereby the planet is a surface relentlessly perforated for the extraction of fossil fuels. The film travels to different locations defined by extractivism: from Los Angeles to the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait to Oman, it transports us to otherworldly landscapes where geopolitical power is accumulated, concocted, and enacted. THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD is a meditation on the necrological worlding of modernity: extracting dead organic matter to transform it into an energetic and material commodity whilst bringing about the destruction of ecosystems, displacement of indigenous peoples, privatisation of natural resources, illness-bearing pollution, and rising planetary temperatures. ⌀⌀⌀⌀⌀ KARLOS GIL: DE KERN HOUDT GEEN STAND RADIUS presenteert een solotentoonstelling van Karlos Gil rond de première van zijn nieuwste film, THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD. Zien we je bij de opening van KARLOS GIL: DE KERN HOUDT GEEN STAND op zaterdag 7 maart vanaf 16:00? THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD is een meeslepende cinematografische reis door de geologische en kosmische diepe tijd van olie, waarin de planeet een oppervlak is dat meedogenloos wordt doorboord voor de winning van fossiele brandstoffen. De film neemt ons mee naar verschillende locaties die worden gekenmerkt door extractivisme: van Los Angeles tot de Verenigde Arabische Emiraten, van Koeweit tot Oman, en voert ons naar bizarre landschappen waar geopolitieke macht zich concentreert en ingezet wordt. THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD is een meditatie over de necrologische wereld van de moderniteit: het winnen van dood organisch materiaal dat wordt omgezet in een energetisch en materieel product, terwijl ecosystemen worden vernietigd, inheemse volkeren ontheemd, natuurlijke hulpbronnen geprivatiseerd, de daaruit voortvloeiende vervuiling ziek maakt en de temperaturen op aarde verder stijgen.

YEAR-PROGRAMME 2026 YOU AND I ARE EARTH — TOWARDS AN EARTHLY POLITICS At a time when the Earth is increasingly making its limits felt, RADIUS presents the 2026 year-programme YOU AND I ARE EARTH — TOWARDS AN EARTHLY POLITICS. Starting from the question ‘Where can we land?’ the programme explores how human, non-human, and more-than-human life are inextricably intertwined in what philosopher Bruno Latour calls the ‘critical zone’: the thin, vulnerable layer in which soil, water, air, and living beings constantly influence each other. Against the backdrop—or perhaps the foreground—of climate change, ecological depletion, and geopolitical tensions, RADIUS invites artists, thinkers, and visitors to no longer view the Earth as a static backdrop or passive resource, but as an active, political, and relational entity. ⌀⌀⌀⌀⌀ JAARPROGRAMMA 2026 JIJ EN IK ZIJN AARDE — OP WEG NAAR EEN AARDSE POLITIEK In een tijd waarin de Aarde steeds nadrukkelijker haar grenzen laat voelen, presenteert RADIUS in 2026 het jaarprogramma JIJ EN IK ZIJN AARDE — OP WEG NAAR EEN AARDSE POLITIEK. Vertrekkend vanuit de vraag “Waar kunnen we landen?” onderzoekt het programma hoe menselijk, niet-menselijk en meer-dan-menselijk leven onlosmakelijk met elkaar verweven zijn in wat filosoof Bruno Latour de ‘kritieke zone’ noemt: de dunne, kwetsbare laag waarin bodem, water, lucht en levende wezens elkaar voortdurend beïnvloeden. Tegen de achtergrond—of juist voorgrond—van klimaatverandering, ecologische uitputting en geopolitieke spanningen nodigt RADIUS kunstenaars, denkers en bezoekers uit om de Aarde niet langer te beschouwen als statisch decor of passieve hulpbron, maar als een actieve, politieke en relationele entiteit.

CAN THE MONSTER SPEAK? A group exhibition with Sharan Bala, Pauline Boudry/Renate Lorenz, G. Gamel, Hudinilson Jr., Dan Uk Kim, Xie Lei, Sasha Litvintseva & Beny Wagner, Clémence Lollia Hilaire, and Luiz Roque. Until February 22, 2026 @radius.cca This exhibition examines the historical, scientific, and cultural construct of queerness as monstrous and explores monstrosity as an emancipatory and desirable political aspiration. It explores different embodiments, affects, and considerations of monstrosity as a tool of resistance, a mode of becoming, and a political declaration. This exhibition does not consist of an anthology of monsters, nor it intends to reproduce the systems of legibility and representation that make non-normative subjects monstrous, and therefore susceptible to many kinds of violence. Instead, it conjures monstrosity as an affect, a feeling, a flirtation, a visceral reaction, against literality and for ambiguity. Marginally, the monster creeps into the cracks in the center, making it quiver. A monstrous political ecology promises a regenerative politics in the sense that it can both reveal and undo the racist, ableist, supremacist, classist, queerphobic, and speciesist foundations on which the “human” as we know it has been constructed. There is potential in re-signifying monstrosity, in embracing it rather than rebuking it, in recognising that the horror lies in the perpetuation of monstrous stigma by those who deem themselves normal. It is this normativity that drives the current epoch of mass extinction, as it is intimately connected to the cultural dominance of fixed, heterosexual ways of reproduction, desire, and relating over symbiotic and promiscuous queer assemblages. Huge gratitude to the artists, galleries, team, and those who came to the opening. More information and full exhibition booklet on radius-cca.org. 📸 by Gunnar Meier.

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Everybody is wholeheartedly invited to join the opening of CAN THE MONSTER SPEAK?, a group exhibition on monstrosity as foundational to queer ecologies at @radius.cca , with this great constellation of artists: Sharan Bala, Pauline Boudry / Renate Lorenz, G. Gamel, Hudinilson Jr., Dae Uk Kim, Xie Lei, Sasha Litvintseva & Beny Wagner, Clémence Lollia Hilaire, and Luiz Roque. Opening December 6 from 16:00 to 19:00, with Glühwein and darkwave music, and with an after-opening dinner in the water tower. RSVP and tickets on RADIUS’ website. CAN THE MONSTER SPEAK? examines the historical, scientific, and cultural construct of queerness as monstrous and explores monstrosity as an emancipatory and desirable political aspiration. By embodying notions of transformation, ambiguity, and deviancy, monsters upset constructs like race, gender, purity, and beauty, and thus represent a transgression of the norms that make up the dominant cisgender, binary, patriarchal, heterosexual, and white system of power. At the same time, monsters are necessary to define what is considered “normal” by contrast and exclusion. This exhibition unpacks this duality and explores different embodiments, affects, and considerations of monstrosity as a tool of resistance, a mode of becoming, and a political position. In doing so, it advocates for ecologies beyond binaries, beyond the human, and beyond the constraints of gender, sex, and identity as enforced by Capitalism. In other words, a way of inhabiting the Earth around the celebration of difference, where monstrosity is a radical refusal to normativity, and where queerness is the relentless practice of freedom within systems not meant to be surpassed.  Excerpts of the accompanying essay are available to read on the website. Full essay available soon in booklet form. See you December 6? 😈 Special thanks to Galerie Eric Mouchet, Marcelle Alix, Ellen de Bruijne PROJECTS, Sies + Höke, Mendes Wood DM, and Tlön Projects for facilitating the presentation of many artists in the exhibition. Visual campaign by @salt.pepper.peace Curatorial intern @yanna.kok

an exuberantly impossible city

nestled among mountains

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BECOMING UNCOMMON SUBJECTS, an exhibition by WERKER COLLECTIVE, is now up and running at @radius.cca until November 23. I am very proud of this exhibition. I have been following Werker’s practice for some years now, and I have been waiting for the right moment to work together to make an exhibition at RADIUS. This year, as we are exploring political ecologies that open up the horizons of what it can mean to be political across differences within a highly polarised climate (figuratively and literally), it was a very opportune time to work together. Werker (founded by Marc Roig Blesa and Rogier Delfos) operates at the intersection of labour, ecofeminism, and LGBTQIA+ movements, developing projects alongside a network of collaborators that forge intergenerational and intersectional solidarity and create alliances where to study, imagine, perform, and make art together. Werker has been building an archive comprising more than three thousand documents at present. In this exhibition, their archive is presented in three of their main methodologies: moving image, textile, and archive. At its core, this exhibition zooms in on the topic of abolition as a framework to reconsider systems of labour under Capitalism (which equates work with life, making them an indissociable unit and therefore having profound effects in our bodies and relationships). By exploring the abolition of labour as a biopolitical regime, this exhibition opens possibilities of reclaiming and redefining work, moving from labour as a method of repression and extraction to the constitution of spaces of solidarity and collective action that form the “Uncommons”, a proposal by McKenzie Wark. This exhibition is a place to study, reflect, imagine, enjoy, gather, exchange, and analyse. I welcome you all to experience it and take active part of it: we are organising a reading rehearsal on abolition on October 4th, and a textile printing workshop on November 8th. Both are free events and have limited capacity. For more information see the RADIUS’ website. “Workings of the world untie! You have a win to world!” Photography: Gunnar Meier.

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