The Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), a collective of plantation workers from the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Dutch artist Renzo Martens will represent the Netherlands at the 60th Venice Biennale, to be held from April 20 to November 24. 2024. The Dutch pavilion is organized by Hicham Kalidi, director of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht.
CATPC has been linked to Martens since 2014, two years after he founded the Institute of Human Activities (IHA) at KASK/School of Arts of University College Ghent, Belgium. Thanks to the IHA, Martens established an artists’ colony on a former Unilever plantation in the Congolese rainforest, near the small town of Lusanga. He launched an initiative there, which frequently raised questions relating to problems of gentrification And ethics— aimed at providing former plantation workers with artistic training so that they can earn a living wage. CATPC members include farmer-artists, artists and environmentalists; they have exhibited works, often centered on the locally grown cocoa bean, at the SculptureCenter in New York, the Biennale of Sydney and the Biennale Dak’Art in Senegal.
Martens and CATPC’s contribution to the Venice Biennale will take reparations as one of its themes. The presentation of the artists at the Dutch pavilion will be mirrored by that of White Cube, the gallery designed by the OMA which is part of the International Center for Research on Art and Economic Inequalities in Lusanga, which occupies the former plantation belonging to the ‘IHA.
“The opportunity to now pair a white cube on a plantation with one at the top of the art world allows for a direct look at these two worlds and the inequalities between them,” said Ced’art Tamasala, member of the CATPC. “Meaningful and sincere reflections will be produced from these different, but related, realities that come together. Through this presentation, we will arrive at the final stage of our collective journey towards truths worth sharing.
