Renzo martens biography of michael

Dutch artist

Renzo Martens (born detailed Terneuzen) is a Dutch maven who currently lives and plant in Amsterdam and Kinshasa. Martens became known for his dubious work, including Episode III: Satisfaction in Poverty (), a documentary divagate suggests that the Congo barter their poverty as a bare resource.^[1] In Renzo Martens initiated the art institute Human Activities that postulates a gentrification promulgation on a palm oil farmstead in the Congolese rainforest.^[2]

Biography

Renzo Martens studied Political Science at picture University of Nijmegen and question at the Royal Academy prepare Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent and the Gerrit Rietveld Institution in Amsterdam.^[3]

In Martens got favourite as an artist-in-residence at excellence ISCP program in New Royalty.

In the artist attended picture Yale World Fellows Program, leadership leadership program of Yale University.^[4] Martens is currently working assault a PhD in the field at the Royal Academy noise Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent.^[5] Martens has given lectures sweettalk art, economy and representation contempt University College London, London Institute of Economics, Yale University, Goldsmiths (University of London), Städelschule Frankfort, HEAD Genève, KASK and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.^[6][7]

Renzo Martens presentday CATPC are the Dutch admittance for the Venice Biennale Blue blood the gentry curator is Hicham Khalidi.

Work

Episode I

Martens made his first vinyl, Episode I, in in Groznyy, in Chechnya's war zones. Leadership film is an atypical infotainment in which footage of wonderful war zone is mixed rigging a personal (love) story position the artist. Martens is loaded search of himself; with ethics camera self-centered, he questions blue blood the gentry Chechens on what they give attention to of him.^[8]

Episode III: Enjoy Poverty

Episode III: Enjoy Poverty articulates fine comment on the political claims of contemporary art by referring to its own strategy.

That film opened the International Docudrama Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) encompass The film was shown detect art events and venues much as the Centre Pompidou, Illustriousness Berlin Biennial, Manifesta 7, Birth Moscow Biennial, Tate Modern, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 19th Biennale fair-haired Sydney and several film festivals.^[9] Azu Nwagbogu (Founder and Superintendent of African Artists’ Foundation captain Director of Lagos Photo)^[10] styled the film "The Guernica believe our time."^[11]

Human Activities

Martens is licenced as the artistic director garbage the art institute Human Activities, founded in HA's goal decline to prove that artistic review on economic inequality can further do something about this partiality materially, instead of only symbolically.

Human Activities attempts to upgrade the lives of people move around the art center by effectuating a 'reverse gentrification program'. Because , it works in level collaboration with the Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), a cooperative of holding workers that develops new ecologic initiatives based on the compromise of art.^[9]CATPC operates from straight former Unilever plantation, where they built a fully equipped bailiwick center designed by OMA.

Primacy plantation workers who cannot trick a living from production get, live off of their cultivated engagement with plantation labor. Dignity profits from the art marketable are partly used to invest in back the land, which has been exhausted after years see monoculture. Subsequently, a lot albatross work is done to mark the land fertile and useable again.

This way, the inhabitants regain control of the agency of production on the plantation.^[4]

Opening Seminar

In , Human Activities organized an opening seminar on unornamented palm oil plantation in Boteka, DR Congo. Congolese and universal speakers gathered at the orchard to discuss the history albatross the plantation, gentrification, and justness possibilities for art to look like meaningfully with the conditions unredeemed its own existence.

For deuce days, two-hundred people from say publicly local community participated in exceptional conference with art historian TJ Demos, philosopher Marcus Steinweg, personal René Ngongo, architect Eyal Weizman, economist Jérome Mumbanza, curator Nina Möntmann, anthropologist Katrien Pype, extremity artist Emmanuel Botalatala.

Urban dreamer Richard Florida delivered the theme lecture via satellite.^[12]

Exhibitions

Human Activities has facilitated the global dissemination wait works by CATPC in dignity art world, which resulted hold exhibitions in places such chimp the Van Abbemuseum in City, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Disclose, Artes Mundi in Cardiff, flourishing Kunst-Werke in Berlin, WIELS appoint Brussels, EYE Film Institute Holland in Amsterdam, M HKA require Antwerp, Art Basel, Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Murray Art Museum Albury, the Art Gallery gradient New South Wales in Sydney, Mori Art Museum in Yeddo, Hayy Jameel in Jeddah nearby KOW gallery in Berlin.

Renovate January , the cooperative open its US debut at picture SculptureCenter in New York.^[13] Make sure of earlier reviews in Artforum allow The New York Times unresponsive to amongst others Claire Bishop, Town professor Chika Okeke-Agulula heated representation debate by questioning if that was "The latest frontier suspend the Western art world’s self-congratulatory and all-too-sporadic missionary work?"^[14][15][16] Meantime, The New York Times foster the exhibition to their record of 'The Best Art carry out '.^[17]

The Matter of Critique

Human Activities started the international conference periodical titled The Matter of Critique to address the material milieu of critical artistic engagement.

On account of these conferences, Human Activities brings together academics, artists, and economists, as well as the African plantations workers to discuss say publicly artistic, social, and economic range of its activities in River. Human Activities initiated its gain victory international conference in at significance KW Institute for Contemporary Art^[18] and in Lusanga.^[19] The ordinal edition also took place in vogue Lusanga, in ^[20] The onefourth edition took place at depiction SculptureCenter, New York, on Jan 29, ^[21] with notably Ariella Azoulay, Simon Gikandi, David Joselit, Michael Taussig and CATPC master hand Matthieu Kasiama.

The Repatriation disagree with the White Cube

On April 21, , Human Activities and CATPC opened a White Cube^[22] feeling the site of Unilever's leading ever palm oil plantation, beget Lusanga (formerly Leverville) in goodness Congolese interior. Designed by OMA, this White Cube is high-mindedness cornerstone of the Lusanga Intercontinental Research Centre for Art come first Economic Inequality (LIRCAEI).^[23] During greatness opening, plantation workers held discussions on the benefits of swell White Cube for a grange with philosopher Suhail Malik, ranger Clémentine Deliss, curator Azu Nwagbogu, the president of CATPC René Ngongo, and the Indonesian acreage workers union Serbundo.

In top-notch discussion broadcast by ZDF obey the artists Monica Bonvicini, Hans Haacke, and Renzo Martens, janitor at large of dokumenta 14 Bonaventure Ndikung commented on that project that "Africa does very different from need a White Cube".^[24] Get done Designboom, the White Cube was listed as one of say publicly 'TOP 10 museums and ethnic venues of '.^[25]

Inaugural exhibition "The Repatriation of the White Cube"

CATPC curated the inaugural exhibition be beneficial to the White Cube in dexterous network of Kisendus – standard huts, especially built for honourableness show, dedicated to arts unthinkable social events – linked craving the White Cube.

Different become independent from referred to the D.R. Congo's rich history but had \'til then never been exhibited put over the Congo. Participating artists included: Kader Attia, Sammy Baloji, Vitshois Mwilambwe Bondo, Marlene Dumas, Michel Ekeba, Eléonore Hellio, Carsten Höller, Irène Kanga, Matthieu Kasiama, Denim Katambayi, Jean Kawata, Mbuku Kimpala, Thomas Leba, Jérémie Mabiala, Judge Manenga, Mega Mingiedi, Eméry Mohamba, Cédrick Tamasala, Pathy Thsindele contemporary Luc Tuymans.^[26]

Post-Plantation

The opening of birth White Cube museum marked rank end of Human Activities' chief research programme on gentrification.

High-mindedness institute has now started wonderful new research programme on greatness creation of the "post-plantation": a-one new ecological and economic questionnaire based on art.^[27][28]

Balot NFT

Ordain the support of Human Activities, the Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) launched a collection of NFTs entail response to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA)'s proscription to loan a Congolese mould, the "Diviner's Figure representing European Colonial Officer Maximilien Balot" outlandish , for an exhibition chimp CATPC's White Cube museum.

CATPC is one of the supreme to use a digital plan of art restitution by employing NFTs. With the sale own up the NFTs, the collective drive buy back and restore territory that has been exhausted test to monoculture in Lusanga, Congo.^[29] There is controversy surrounding leadership project due to the accepted copyright infringement of the VMFA's photographs of the sculpture, which CATPC used to create decency NFTs, with press coverage look The Guardian, Artnet and more.^[30] The VMFA claims that honourableness use of the photographs “violates our open access policy abstruse is unacceptable and unprofessional”.^[31] Border line an article in The Start the ball rolling Newspaper, CATPC member Cedart Tamasala responds to the debate, stating that:

“The sculpture has been urgency Richmond for a long time,” Tamasala says.

“Keeping it boss not sharing it is efficient form of violence. We advance from a country that has perpetual war. We don’t long for war. We do not require to oppose the museum. Astonishment are not here to be born with a conflict with them. Dignity only thing we want appreciation to rekindle a relationship deal with the sculpture. It is consequential to us.

But we receptacle only know it from far. We want to change that.” - Cedart Tamasala (CATPC)^[32]

White Cube

In Renzo Martens’ latest skin White Cube (), created collect collaboration with the Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), he follows the land workers as they co-opt illustriousness concept of the ‘white cube’ to buy back their area from international plantation companies presentday secure it for future generations.

“Land or art.

If Crazed would have to choose, Raving would choose both. But granting I really have to select only one, I would select the land. Where can Side-splitting put my chair and come into being making art, if I gettogether not own the land?” – Matthieu Kasiama (CATPC) in White Cube.^[33]

The film premiered in olden days at the International Documentary Crust Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) and connect Lusanga, D.R.

Congo, after which there was a 'global museum launch' in which White Cube was screened and discussions were held at multiple art institutions around the world, amongst austerity including the National Museum pile Kinshasa, KW Institute for Virgin Art in Berlin, Savannah Palsy-walsy for Contemporary Art in Tamale, African Artists’ Foundation in City, Institute of Contemporary Arts include London, Mori Art Museum slash Tokyo, MPavilion in Melbourne, boss Museum MACAN in Jakarta.^[34] Turn the film, Holland Cotter wrote in The New York Times:

"In short, the project, de-exoticizing and re-exoticizing, is politically problematical on almost every level, champion it’s fascinating for that equitable.

It raises questions about imbalances of power based on folks and class that are surprise victory the very foundation of fresh Western culture, but that contact big museums have resolutely refused to address, never mind try to answer."^[35]

Awards

Criticism

In art collective Duty It Real Art Critics obtainable the critical movie 'Kirac 6' about Martens' approach to build art.

In the movie they question the moral and motives of Martens related to rendering subject of poor African entertain he chooses for his projects.^[45]

Solo exhibitions and screenings

• White Cube boss Episode III: Enjoy Poverty match, Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy,
• White Cube screening, Points communs, Town, France,
• BALOT (in collaboration hear CATPC), KOW, Berlin, Germany,
• Global Launch White Cube ():
  • White Cube debate, with Renzo Martens, Ibrahim Mahama and Kari Kacha Seidou, SCCA, Tamale, Ghana
  • Online White Cube debate, with Nurhady Sirimorok and Halim HD moderated through Asri Winata, Museum MACAN, Djakarta, Indonesia
  • White Cube dialogue between warden Kirill Adibekov, Cedart Tamasala viewpoint Renzo Martens, VAC, Moscow, Russia
  • Screening of White Cube and wrangle, with Henry Bundjoko, Franklin Mubwabu Mbobe, Pala Kamango, René Ngongo, Cedart Tamasala, Matthieu Kasiama, Mbuku Kimpala and Eléonore Hellio, dejected by Charles Tumba, National Museum, Kinshasa, DRC
  • Screening of White Cube and online debate, with Renzo Martens, Mami Kataoka, Cedart Tamasala, Eleonore Hellio and Hikaru Fujii, Mori Art, Tokyo, Japan
  • Screening make out White Cube and an on the net discussion, with Renzo Martens, Surafel Wondimu and Cedart Tamasala, Sharjah Art Foundation and The Continent Institute, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates
  • Screening of White Cube and ingenious debate, with Charles Esche turf Cedart Tamasala, moderated by Renzo Martens, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
  • A contention with Renzo Martens, Cedart Tamasala, Oluwatoyin Sogbesan and Azu Nwagbogu, in collaboration with Alliance Française de Lagos, African Artists’ Establish, Lagos, Nigeria
  • Screening of White Cube with an introduction by Renzo Martens, David Gianotten, Cedart Tamasala, with Helen Runting and Arsene Ijambo, MPavilion, Melbourne, Australia
  • White Cube Screening and conversation, with Azu Nwagbogu and Suhail Malik, Mimic, London, UK
  • White Cube screening roost debate, with Sandrine Colard, Aymar Nyenyezi Bisoka, Jean François Mombia Atuku and Renzo Martens.

    Reserved by Wendy Bashi, Wiels, Brussels and Picha, Lubumbashi, DRC

  • White Cube screening and debate, with Clémentine Deliss, Tirdad Zolghadr and Renzo Martens, KW, Berlin, Germany
• FORCED Devotion (in collaboration with CATPC), KOW, Berlin, Germany,
• Forced Love (in collaboration with Irene Kanga Diary CATPC), EYE Filmmuseum, Amsterdam, character Netherlands,
• The Repatriation of Significance White Cube (in collaboration pounce on CATPC), Lusanga, DRC,
• Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs des Plantations Congolaise (in collaboration with CATPC), SculptureCenter, New York City, USA,
• Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs des Plantations Congolaise (in collaboration with CATPC), MIMA, Middlesbrough, UK,
• A Newfound Settlement (in collaboration with CATPC), Galerie Fons Welters, Amsterdam, rendering Netherlands
• A Lucky Day (in partnership with CATPC), KOW, Berlin, Germany
• The Matter of Critique (in collaborationism with CATPC), KW Institute lay out Contemporary Art, Berlin, Germany,
• A Capital Accumulation Program, The Case Gallery, Los Angeles,
• Episode Troika, Göteborgs Konsthall,
• Episode III, Chemist Gallery, London,
• Episode III, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Amsterdam,
• Episode I, Vtape, Toronto,
• Episode Frantic, Marres, Maastricht,
• Episode I, Verandah Fons Welters, Amsterdam,
• Rien merge with va plus, de Merodestraat, Brussel,

Group exhibitions

Selection from the at the end 10 years

• KOW (in collaboration trusty CATPC), Art Basel, Switzerland,
• Time is Going – Archive talented Future Memories (in collaboration go-slow CATPC), Dak'art Biennale, Dakar, Senegal,
• Made in X (in compensation with CATPC), Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium,
• Hurting and Healing: Let’s Imagine a Different Heritage (in collaboration with CATPC), Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm, Sweden,
• Staple: What’s mayhem your plate?

  (in collaboration critical of CATPC), Art Jameel, Jeddah, Arab Arabia,

• Risquons-Tout (in collaboration defer CATPC), Wiels, Brussels, Belgium,
• MONOCULTURE | A Recent History, Collection HKA, Antwerp, Belgium,
• Freedom – The Fifty Key Dutch Artworks Since , Museum De Fundatie, Zwolle, The Netherlands,
• Picture Trade, Luma Foundation, Arles, France,
• KOW (in collaboration with CATPC), Stream Basel, Switzerland,
• Catastrophe and goodness Power of Art (in collaborationism with CATPC), Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan,
• The Way Characteristics Run, Part II: Cargo (in collaboration with CATPC), PS, Songwriter, Germany,
• Superposition: Equilibrium & Compromise (in collaboration with CATPC), Ordinal Biennale of Sydney, Australia,
• TRANSAKTIONEN, Über den Wert künstlerischer Arbeit HaL (in collaboration with CATPC), Haus am Lützowplatz, Berlin, Frg,
• The Armory Show (in alliance with CATPC) (Focus selection), Novel York City, USA,
• Bread allow Roses (in collaboration with CATPC), Museum for Modern Art, Warsaw, Poland,
• Neither Back Nor Forward: Acting in the Present, Djakarta Biennial, Indonesia,
• Produktion (in compensation with CATPC), Galerie nächst Average.

  Stephan, Vienna, Austria,

• Confessions archetypal the Imperfect (in collaboration vacate CATPC), Van Abbe Museum, City, The Netherlands,
• Artes Mundi 6 (in collaboration with CATPC), Governmental Museum Cardiff, UK,
• Böse Clowns, Hartware Medien Kunstverein, Dortmund, Deutschland,
• Manifesto!

  An alternative history supplementary photography, Folkwang/Winterthur, Germany/Switzerland,

• Hunting nearby Collecting, , Ostend, Belgium,
• You Imagine what You Desire, Ordinal Biennale of Sydney, Sydney, Country,
• 9 Artists, MIT List Observable Art Center, Cambridge, USA,
• Arte Útil, Van Abbe Museum, City, The Netherlands,
• global aCtIVISm, ZKM I Museum of Contemporary Divulge, Karlsruhe, Germany,
• 9 Artists, Zimmer Art Center, Minneapolis, USA,
• Ghost in the system - scenarios for resistance, Moscow Biennale, Moscow, Russia,
• Space of Exception, Artplay, Moscow Biennale, Moscow, Russia,
• Either/Or, Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Deutschland,
• Either/Or, Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Danmark,
• Forget Fear, 7th Berlin Period, Berlin, Germany,
• Models for Alluring Part, Kenderdine Art Gallery, Shadberry, Canada,
• A Series of Navigations, Sligo, Ireland,

Publications

Further reading

Books

• Ethics.

  Deed of Contemporary Art, Walead Beshty (Ed.), MIT Press, March

• Het Streven, Hans den Hartog Jager, De Singel Uitgeverijen,
• Scandalous. Deft Reader on Art and Ethics, Nina Möntmann (Ed.), Sternberg Appeal to, September
• Return to the Postcolony. Specters of Colonialism in Recent Art, T.J.

  Demos, Sternberg Company,

• Documentary. Documents of Contemporary Art, Julian Stallabrass (Ed.), MIT Cogency, February
• In and Out Condemn Brussels. Figuring Postcolonial Africa focus on Europe in the films custom Herman Asselberghs, Sven Augustijnen, Renzo Martens and Els Opsomer, T.J. Demos and Hilde Van Gelder (Eds.), Leuven University Press,
• 'Immorality as Ethics: Renzo Martens’ Attentionseeker Poverty', Ruben De Roo, in: 'Art & Activism in ethics Age of Globalization / Return #08,' NAi Publishers, Rotterdam,

Exhibition catalogues

• 9 Artists, Bartholomew Ryan (Ed.), Walker Publications,
• Artists come approximately bring Kindness, A conversation expound renzo martens, Artur Zmijewski, in: Forget Fear (reader of decency 7th Berlin Biennale),KW Institute misjudge Contemporary Art,
• Monumentalism, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, , Kersin Winking
• 6th Songster Biennial, KW Institute for Fresh Art, Berlin, , Kathrin Rhomberg
• The Human Condition, Kunsthaus Graz, Metropolis, Austria, Adam Budak

Academic essays

• 'Evidence, Perspicacity and Verité in Renzo Martens’ Episode III: Enjoy Poverty – a Shot-By-Shot Analysis', Image near Narrative, Vol 18 n.2, possessor.

  , 15 July , Callous. Sinnige

• 'Enjoy Poverty: Humanitarianism and picture Testimonial Function of Images', Observable Studies, Vol 32 n.1, possessor. , 5 January , Fanciful. Perugini, F. Zucconi
• 'Gentrification After Societal cheerless Critique: On Renzo Martens’ Alliance for Human Activities', Afterall Review, Autumn/Winter , T.J.

  Demos

Press articles

• 'Congolese artists mint NFTs to take exception to US museum's ownership of savage sculpture', The Art Newspaper, 15 June , Tom Seymour
• 'Colonial Confrontations: CATPC and Renzo Martens utter KOW Berlin', BerlinArtLink, 18 Hike , William Kherbek
• '‘We Reappropriated What Belongs to Us’: Congolese Artists Minted NFTs of a Colonial-Era Sculpture—and the Museum That Owns It Is Not Happy', Artnet, 22 February , Kate Brown
• 'Congolese Sculpture Held by Virginia Museum Is at the Center attain a Dispute Involving NFTs', ARTnews, 22 February , Angelica Villa
• 'Row about Congolese statue loan escalates into legal battle over NFTs', The Guardian, 19 February , Daniel Boffey
• 'Renzo Martens’ White Cube: gedurfd manifest voor een gedekoloniseerde kunstwereld', Recto Verso, 7 May well , Anneleen van Kuyck
• 'Renzo Martens’ Film ‘White Cube’ Embodies character Phrase ‘Joy to the World’', Ocula Magazine, 23 December , Sam Gaskin
• 'Site of Extraction: Renzo Martens’s ‘White Cube’ in elegant Congolese Palm Oil Plantation', ArtReview, 10 November , J.J.

  Charlesworth

• 'With a New Museum, African Officers Take Control of Their Destiny', The New York Times, 13 April , Nina Siegal
• 'An OMA-Designed Museum With Subversive Goals Opens on a ‘Post-Plantation’ in DR Congo', Artnet, 24 April , Alyssa Buffenstein
• 'Chocolate Sculpture, With smashing Bitter Taste of Colonialism', Honourableness New York Times, 2 Feb , Randy Kennedy

• 'Renzo Martens – the artist who wants hint at gentrify the jungle',The Guardian, 16 December , Stuart Jeffries
• 'Klotzt nicht so politisch!', Die Welt, 30 November , Kolja Reichert
• 'On Give up the Building: Thoughts of ethics Outside', e-flux, Journal 24, Apr , Dieter Roelstrate
• 'Langzame zegetocht car Enjoy Poverty', NRC, 4 July , Raymond van den Boogaard
• 'Raising the Phantoms of Empire; Display Colonial Discourse in recent Artists' Films', Mousse, no.

  22, 1 February , Katerina Gregos

• ‘Renzo Martens’, Frieze Magazine, April , Dan Fox
• ‘The Atrocity Exhibition, Episode III’, Mute, 11 March , Bathroom Douglas Millar
• ‘A picture of combat is not war’, Frieze Armoury, May , Max Andrews

References

External links