Portikus

11/06/2026

Please join us on Sunday, June 14, at 3 PM for a guided tour of Tanya Lukin Linklater’s solo exhibition “Crested.“

In her artistic practice, Tanya Lukin Linklater engages questions of belonging, memory, and Indigenous knowledge in the context of the ongoing afterlives of colonial violence. For “Crested,“ she has developed a new cycle of work comprising bentwood sculptures, textile installations, beadwork, and watercolors that draw on the visual traditions and methodologies of Sugpiaq communities.

Lukin Linklater asks what forms restitution and repatriation might take, and is particularly interested in how knowledge, cultural practices, and relationships can be carried forward despite colonial control and institutional forgetting.

Free admission.

Photo: Robert Schittko

09/06/2026

We cordially invite you to the symposium „Relationalities: Conditions of Interdependence,“ jointly organized by Städelschule and Portikus.

The symposium will take place on Friday, June 12, 2026, from 6–7:30 pm, and Saturday, June 13, 2026, from 1–8:30 pm, at the Aula, Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main.

Participation is free of charge and no registration is required. Seating is limited.

„Relationalities: Conditions of Interdependence“ examines how artistic and curatorial practices across diverse geographical and political contexts develop collaborative strategies and methodologies in response to contemporary social, economic, and political conditions. The symposium asks, how do artists, curators, and cultural workers engage with, reshape, or create the infrastructures that enable collective initiatives? How are existing institutions reconfigured, and what forms of para-institutional networks, solidarities, and systems of material and immaterial exchange emerge through contemporary artistic practice today?

Presentations and discussions will bring together speakers and interlocutors including Amal Ahaag (Metro54), Karen Archey, Zasha Colah, Niloufar Emamifar, Haja Fanta (RAW Material Company), Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh (blaxTARLINES), Sarah Pierce (The Metropolitan Complex), Hamza Walker, and Mi You.

We look forward to welcoming you.

Accessibility Information
The Aula at Städelschule is accessible at ground level via the side entrance on Holbeinstraße and a gravel pathway. Please note that large parts of the Städelschule building are not yet fully accessible. If you have specific access requirements, we encourage you to contact us in advance so that we can discuss available support and accommodations.

Design: Studio Latitude

03/06/2026

The Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule and Portikus are pleased to announce a joint symposium on June 12–13, 2026. Titled Relationalities: Conditions of Interdependence, the program focuses on curatorial and artistic practices which challenge, decentralize, or transform institutional structures and networks.

The symposium invites local and international artists, curators, and researchers to examine collective approaches that probe institutional structures and establish parallel material and affective economies.

Relationalities: Conditions of Interdependence explores how artistic and curatorial practices across the world develop strategies and methodologies of collaboration in reaction to their specific current political and economic conditions. The symposium examines how these approaches reconfigure existing institutions and foster para-institutional networks and structures of material and immaterial exchange in contemporary art today.

The symposium begins on June 12 (6–7:30pm) with a keynote by curator and writer Hamza Walker, followed by a discussion with curator Karen Archey. On June 13 (1–8:30pm), presentations and discussions will be led by renowned speakers and interlocutors such as Zasha Colah, Niloufar Emamifar, Haja Fanta (RAW Material Company), Metro54, Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh (BlaxTARLINES), Sarah Pierce/The Metropolitan Complex, and Mi You.

Concept by: Deiara Semeco Kouto , Städelschule program curator, and Juliane Bischoff , curator of Portikus.
Rector Städelschule / Director Portikus: Barbara Clausen.

31/05/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the opening of Crested and for celebrating Tanya Lukin Linklater’s first solo exhibition in Europe.

We are pleased to present Lukin Linklater’s Open Rehearsals, Tendon Thread, as part of the exhibition. The rehearsals will take place again today from 2–4 pm.

In her artistic practice, Lukin Linklater engages questions of belonging, memory, and Indigenous knowledge within the ongoing afterlives of colonial violence.

For Tendon Thread, she develops choreographic situations that explore listening, sensation, and embodied inquiry together with performers Mya Dixon, Talia Dixon, Mekko Harjo, and Mina Linklater. Rather than presenting finished enactments, these open rehearsals are intended to to share relational, ever-changing processes.

We look forward to welcoming you.



The exhibition is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation), supported by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), the Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur, and Städelschule Portikus e.V., with additional support from Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm.

Photos: Nils Heck

26/05/2026

We are delighted to invite you to the opening of Crested, Tanya Lukin Linklater’s first solo exhibition in Europe, on Friday, 29 May 2026 at 6 pm, followed by a series of open rehearsals over the weekend - 30 & 31 May, 2–4 pm.

Crested unfolds as an open constellation — attuned to shifting temporalities, layered memory, and forms of attention grounded in relation rather than appropriation.

Lukin Linklater’s site-specific work will be activated through open rehearsals on Saturday and Sunday with performers Talia Dixon, Mya Dixon (both Payómkawichum), Mekko Harjo (Mvskoke, Shawnee, Seminole, Quapaw Nation), and Mina Linklater (Omaskeko Ininiwuk/Sugpiaq). Rather than presenting finished performances, these choreographic situations unfold as relational, ever-evolving processes, where knowledge emerges as bodily memory, activated and transmitted through movement, repetition, and interruption.

Lukin Linklater approaches choreography as an epistemological practice for articulating embodied knowledge. Silence and opacity are held as a methodology of obscurity: the body is present, yet resists full disclosure. This gesture refuses extractive reading, linear narrative, and Western archival logics, in order to hold Indigenous knowledge systems in protection.



Crested is funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media). Further support is provided by Hessisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung, Kunst und Kultur and Städelschule Portikus e.V. Academic research for this exhibition was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Canada, with additional support from Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm.

Image: Tanya Lukin Linklater, bison bison (dance_hum for dirtbath), 2025, performance with Sam Aros-Mitchell, Talia Dixon, Jonathan González, Mekko Harjo, Gladstone Butler, Fjóla Evans, Miguel Gallego, Rahul Nair, Dia Chelsea, New York, USA, 2025. Photo: Don Stahl. Courtesy Dia Art Foundation.

22/05/2026

12/05/2026

Tanya Lukin Linklater’s practice encompasses dance, performance, video, photography, installation, and writing.  She engages the histories that shape Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences, lands, and ways of knowing. Drawing on lineages of Indigenous dance and visual art, her work attends to structures of sustenance and to the forces of weather, understood as vital, interwoven systems. 

Her exhibition Crested, opens on Friday, May 29, 6pm, and will be on view until August 30, 2026.

Lukin Linklater’s recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada (2026); Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, USA (2024); Oakville Galleries, Oakville, Canada (2023); Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2022), among others.  

Lukin Linklater received the Wexner Center for the Arts Artist Residency Award in Visual Arts (2023-2024) and The Herb Alpert Award in the Arts for Visual Arts (2021).   

She studied at Stanford University and University of Alberta and completed her Ph.D. in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University in 2023. She is a faculty member at the Institute of American Indian Arts (Santa Fe) low-residency MFA in Studio Arts (2021-present). 

Tanya Lukin Linklater lives and works in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. 



Photo: Pasha Rafiy

04/05/2026

We are pleased to announce Crested, Tanya Lukin Linklater’s exhibition at Portikus, on view 30 May — 30 August 2026, her first institutional solo exhibition in Europe.
Please join us for the opening on Friday, 29 May 2026, 6 pm.

For Crested, Lukin Linklater presents a new, site-specific body of work, including bentwood sculptures, beadwork, suspended textile forms, and watercolours.

Her practice engages the histories that shape Indigenous peoples’ lived experiences, lands, and ways of knowing. Drawing on lineages of Indigenous dance and visual art, her work attends to structures of sustenance and to the forces of weather, understood as vital, interwoven systems.

As part of the exhibition, Lukin Linklater will undertake a series of open rehearsals with performers Mya Dixon, Talia Dixon, and Mekko Harjo, presented on 30 & 31 May, 2–4 pm.

Tanya Lukin Linklater (Sugpiaq, b. 1976, Kodiak Island, USA) lives and works in North Bay, Ontario. Her practice encompasses dance, performance, video, photography, installation, and writing.

Director: Barbara Clausen
Curator: Juliane Bischoff
Supported by: Carina Bukuts



The exhibition is made possible by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, with support from Städelschule Portikus e.V., the Goethe Institut, and Mousonturm.

Poster design: Espace Ness / Émilie Ferrat

01/05/2026

Saodat Ismailova’s exhibition When the Water Turns to Wind is on view until May 10.

In her eponymous film installation, created specifically for Portikus, Ismailova continues her engagement with Central Asia’s layered histories, political transformations, and ecological conditions. The work reflects on loss, memory, and environmental collapse through the story of the disappearing Aral Sea — once one of the largest inland lakes in the world and now the site of one of the most devastating man-made environmental disasters of the 20th century.

Drawing from local perspectives while situating them within broader political and ecological contexts, the installation examines extractivist water systems linked to the cotton industry and imperial development projects. Through historical traces and transnational connections, Ismailova develops a filmic language that challenges imposed borders and highlights a region shaped by interconnected histories and environmental realities.

We are open
Tuesday—Friday, 12am-7pm
Saturday—Sunday, 11am-7pm
We are looking forward to welcoming you.

27/04/2026

Thursday, April 30, 2026, 7 pm – Film screening: Undercurrents – On Landscapes and Legacies

To conclude the film program in the context of Saodat Ismailova’s exhibition ‚When the Water Turns to Wind,‘ we will present ,Zone‘ by Simon Shim-Sutcliffe, shown in Germany for the first time. The work reflects on how liquid infrastructures shape spaces of abandoned memory and the layered ruins of successive empires. In contrast to the constructed landscape of the Panama Canal, the film stages an artificial well in an empty parking lot, echoing Gatun Lake as part of the canal’s engineered water system.

Drawing on his family history as Chinese labourers who worked on the Canal, Shim-Sutcliffe traces the making of forgotten images and examines how fluid landscapes have contributed to collective narratives of progress. ,Zone‘ brings together archival material, aerial tracking shots, 16mm and digital film, phone footage, stage design, and collage to explore the intersecting political and cultural forces that have shaped this site.

The screening will be followed by a conversation between and Portikus curator .

Admission is free.
We look forward to welcoming you.

Image: Simon Shim-Sutcliffe, Zone, 2025, film still, Courtesy of the artist.