Xavier Robles de Medina
Untitled (dress to protest)

The only untitled work in the artist’s solo presentation with the gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong 2022 also happens to be the only one sourced on social media and in full colour. Shared to Instagram stories by a friend of the artist, the source image captures a party inside a cathedral in the Netherlands, at which a projection encourages party-goers to “dress to protest.” As Robles de Medina puts it, the image is a kind of real-space collage. The pointed arches and Quatrefoil clover-shaped windows typical of Gothic architecture, float above the projection.

A play on the phrase “dress to impress,” it is as indicative of our time as any other, conjuring up associations of influencer culture—like the controversial Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial and any number of advertisements capitalizing on contemporary protest culture we’ve grown accustomed to seeing on social media. This suggests another layer to Robles de Medina’s show title What if the tongue is cut out? and questions what might be at stake for artists operating within a Neoliberal system.

What is the cost of neglecting the mother tongue and perpetuating the supremacy of English? Neoliberalism has an uncanny ability to absorb counter cultures in order to invert them for its own Capitalist motives. Within this model, what is the cost for the artist of the quantified self? Notice how “dress to protest” is not a call to any specific political action or belief, like Black Lives Matter, women’s reproductive rights, or land reform. It’s merely asking the partygoers inside this Gothic cathedral to look as if they have political leanings.