Renzo Martens - Plantations and White Cubes

Goldsmiths College Department of Art MFA Lectures 2018 - 2019 Series 2.2: Inequality 25 Feb 2019 — Suhail Malik (Goldsmiths): Contemporary Art, Neoliberal Enforcer 04 Mar 2019 — Jo Littler (City): ‘Making it’…making what? Meritocracy and entrepreneurialism in neoliberal culture 11 Mar 2019 — Milly Williamson (Goldsmiths): Ordinary Celebrities vs Aristocrats: How Depictions of Work and Leisure Naturalise Inequality on Television 18 Mar 2019 — Renzo Martens (Institute of Human Activities): Plantations and White Cubes Renzo Martens Plantations and White Cubes 18th March 2019 Historically, plantations have funded the building of many European and American museums. Rather than (critically) rehearsing the problem, we aim to put art’s capacity to better use. We move beyond critique, and install a model in which art’s capacity to attract capital, visibility and legitimisation is put to strategic purposes. With the launch of the OMA-designed White Cube on a former Unilever palm oil plantation in Congo, the ambition is to slowly build a network throughout the world’s plantation zones, kickstarting an international movement of artist-plantation workers buying back their own land. This isn’t art that points to inequality. It is art that provides the inspiration and the capital to build inclusive, ecological post-plantations. Bio Renzo Martens studied political science and art. He gained international recognition with the films Episode I, and Episode III: Enjoy Poverty, which was televised in more than 23 countries. In 2012, Martens established the Institute for Human Activities (IHA) and its Gentrification Program in DR Congo. Together with the plantation workers of Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) he uses artistic critique to redress economic inequality — not symbolically, but in material terms. Consequently, they opened a OMA-designed White Cube on a former Unilever plantation in 2017, where they currently develop an inclusive worker owned and ecological post-plantation. The work of the CATPC has recently been shown in a solo exhibition in SculptureCenter New York, the 21st Biennale of Sydney and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. Presented by the Department of Art, Goldsmiths.