Screening and debate White Cube - Renzo Martens and CATPC

On Wednesday 14 April at 18:30 CET an online screening takes place of the film White Cube with subsequently a talk between  Renzo Martens, Ced'Art Tamasala (CATPC) and Charles Esche (Van Abbemuseum).  This event is part of the world wide launch of White Cube by fifteen key art institutions.

White Cube

In the film "White Cube”, directed by Renzo Martens in collaboration with CATPC (Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise), we see how Congolese plantation workers set a new precedent: they successfully co-opt the concept of the ‘white cube’ to buy back their land from international plantation companies, and secure it for future generations. The film considers how museums can become decolonised and inclusive, but only on the condition that the benefits accrued around the museum flow back to the plantation workers whose labour financed – and in some cases continues to finance – the very foundations of these institutions.

World wide launch

During a four-week launch, the film will be projected daily onto the white walls of the White Cube in Lusanga (in the Democratic Republic of the Congo), the building that features in the film. On April 14, the film will be screened online by the Van Abbemuseum, after which a debate will place. During the global museum launch (March 24 – April 24), a total of fifteen key art institutions across four continents will join the event, hosting a series of screenings and debates about the projects’ implications. These participating institutions include the National Museum (Kinshasa), KW Institute for Contemporary Art (Berlin), SCCA (Tamale), African Artists’ Foundation (Lagos), V-A-C (Moscow), Wiels (Brussels), ICA (London), Mori Art Museum (Tokyo), Picha (Lubumbashi), MPavilion (Melbourne), Museum MACAN (Jakarta), White Cube (Lusanga), Sharjah Art Foundation, The Africa Institute (Sharjah) and the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven).