José Ramia
Dominican Republic – Performance artist,
‘The work of José Ramia (b. 1984, Santiago de los Caballeros) provides us a final example
of how useful performativity can be to dismantle restricted identifications of the contemporary
with what is happening now, or what belongs to the present. In 2014, Ramia and
Clara Caminero organized a cultural program called Hello krisis. The title was taken from a
painting by Ramia that referred to the difficulties in finding a space to exhibit work outside
of the mainstream institutional circuit of Santo Domingo. What started as an inquiry
into the institutional conditions of the Dominican art system expanded into a broader
consideration of the relationship between culture and crisis. Hello krisis involved several
performance actions, talks, and exhibitions, including a series of three exhibitions simultaneously
taking place in the workspaces of José Ramia, Lina Aybar, and Evelyn Lima