Renzo Martens

Renzo Martens (born 1973 in Terneuzen) is a Dutch artist who currently lives and works in Amsterdam and Kinshasa.

Martens made his first film, Episode I, in 2000 in Grozny, in Chechnya's war zones.

The film is an atypical documentary in which footage of a war zone is mixed with a personal (love) story of the artist.

Martens is in search of himself; with the camera self-centered, he questions the Chechens on what they think of him.

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

Martens became known for his controversial work, including Episode III: Enjoy Poverty (2008), a documentary that suggests that the Congo market their poverty as a natural resource.

This film opened the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2009.

In 2010 Renzo Martens initiated the art institute Human Activities that postulates a gentrification program on a palm oil plantation in the Congolese rainforest.

Renzo Martens studied Political Science at the University of Nijmegen and art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.

In 2010 Martens got approved as an artist-in-residence at the ISCP program in New York.

Martens is commissioned as the artistic director of the art institute Human Activities, founded in 2012.

HA's goal is to prove that artistic critique on economic inequality can also do something about this inequality materially, instead of only symbolically.

Human Activities attempts to improve the lives of people around the art center by effectuating a 'reverse gentrification program'.

In 2012, Human Activities organised an opening seminar on a palm oil plantation in Boteka, DR Congo.

Congolese and international speakers gathered at the plantation to discuss the history of the plantation, gentrification, and the possibilities for art to deal meaningfully with the conditions of its own existence.

For two days, two-hundred people from the local community participated in a conference with art historian TJ Demos, philosopher Marcus Steinweg, activist René Ngongo, architect Eyal Weizman, economist Jérome Mumbanza, curator Nina Möntmann, anthropologist Katrien Pype, and artist Emmanuel Botalatala.

Urban theorist Richard Florida delivered the keynote lecture via satellite.

Human Activities has facilitated the global dissemination of works by CATPC in the art world, which resulted in exhibitions in places such as the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Artes Mundi in Cardiff, and Kunst-Werke in Berlin, WIELS in Brussels, EYE Film Institute Netherlands in Amsterdam, M HKA in Antwerp, Art Basel, Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, Murray Art Museum Albury, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Hayy Jameel in Jeddah and KOW gallery in Berlin.

In 2013 the artist attended the Yale World Fellows Program, the leadership program of Yale University.

Martens is currently working on a PhD in the arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent.

Martens has given lectures on art, economy and representation at University College London, London School of Economics, Yale University, Goldsmiths (University of London), Städelschule Frankfurt, HEAD Genève, KASK and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid.

Renzo Martens and CATPC are the Dutch entry for the Venice Biennale 2024.

The curator is Hicham Khalidi.

Since 2014, it works in close collaboration with the Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), a cooperative of plantation workers that develops new ecological initiatives based on the production of art.

CATPC operates from a former Unilever plantation, where they built a fully equipped arts center designed by OMA.

The plantation workers who cannot earn a living from production labor, live off of their artistic engagement with plantation labor.

The profits from the art sales are partly used to buy back the land, which has been exhausted after 100 years of monoculture.

Subsequently, a lot of work is done to make the land fertile and usable again.

This way, the residents regain control of the means of production on the plantation.

Human Activities initiated its first international conference in 2015 at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and in Lusanga.

The third edition also took place in Lusanga, in 2016.

In January 2017, the cooperative opened its US debut at the SculptureCenter in New York.

After earlier reviews in Artforum and The New York Times by amongst others Claire Bishop, Princeton professor Chika Okeke-Agulula heated the debate by questioning if this was "The latest frontier in the Western art world’s self-congratulatory and all-too-sporadic missionary work?"

Meanwhile, The New York Times added the exhibition to their list of 'The Best Art of 2017'.

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

Through these conferences, Human Activities brings together academics, artists, and economists, as well as the Congolese plantations workers to discuss the artistic, social, and economic scope of its activities in Congo.

The fourth edition took place at the SculptureCenter, New York, on January 29, 2017 with notably Ariella Azoulay, Simon Gikandi, David Joselit, Michael Taussig and CATPC artist Matthieu Kasiama.

On April 21, 2017, Human Activities and CATPC opened a White Cube on the site of Unilever's first ever palm oil plantation, in Lusanga (formerly Leverville) in the Congolese interior.

The film was shown in art events and venues such as the Centre Pompidou, The Berlin Biennial, Manifesta 7, The Moscow Biennial, Tate Modern, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 19th Biennale of Sydney and several film festivals.

Azu Nwagbogu (Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation and Director of Lagos Photo) called the film "The Guernica of our time."