Renzo Martens will talk on recent developments at the Institute for Human Activities, an organization dedicated to making critical art profitable for the people that inhabit the Congo, rather than people in New York or Berlin. The project started on a former Unilever plantation 800 miles north of Kinshasa on the Congo River, and is currently re-locating, after a series of dramatic events.
Renzo Martens is a Dutch artist and filmmaker and currently serves as director of the Institute. In his first film, Episode 1, Renzo travels to Chechnya to adopt a rarely defined role in contemporary war: that of its spectator. Episode 3, also known as Enjoy Poverty, is a meditation on the political claims of contemporary art and the result of Renzo’s two-year journey in the Congo. In the film, aided by a giant, portable neon sign reading “Enjoy Poverty,” he sets up an emancipation program to encourage local communities to think of their poverty as a resource.
His films have been shown at the 6th Berlin Biennial, Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Van Abbe Museum Eindhoven, Kunsthaus Graz, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, as well as at numerous film festivals and on public broadcast channels. He co-founded the Institute for Human Activities in 2010 with legal structures in Amsterdam, Brussels and Kinshasa.
Today
Ongoing
Summer Term Break 2023
Information, 17 July – 13 October 2023
Winter Semester 2023/24
Information, 16 October 2023 – 9 February 2024
GROTTO – Graduate Show 2023
Exhibition, 14 – 30 July 2023
Hoor Al Qasimi: Sharjah Biennial 15. Thinking Historically in the Present
Lecture, 4 July 2023, 19:00
Manthia Diawara & Monika Szewczyk: AI: African Intelligence
Screening, 28 June 2023, 20:15
Lynn Rother: Uncanny provenance. Art history and its double
Lecture, 27 June 2023, 19:00
Slavs and Tatars: The Transliterative Tease
Lecture, 20 June 2023
Amt 45 i: Talks
Symposium, 17 June 2023, 14:00–20:30
another night in daimler
Konzert, 16 June 2023, 20:00
Jacqui Davies: Playing with Fire or the perils of working at the intersection of art and film
Lecture, 13 June 2023, 19:00
Willem de Rooij: King Vulture
Lecture, 6 June 2023, 19:00
Vittoria Martini & Thomas Hirschhorn: The Ambassador’s Diary
Talk, 1 June 2023
Tarek Lakhrissi: Beastangel
Lecture, 16 May 2023
Éric Baudelaire: When There is No More Music to Write (Lecture)
Lecture, 9 May 2023
Éric Baudelaire: When There is No More Music to Write (Screening)
Screening, 8 May 2023
Lectures Summer Semester 2023
Lecture, 2 May – 7 July 2023
Grada Kilomba: A conversation about the 35th Bienal de São Paulo
Lecture, 2 May 2023, 19:00
Summer Semester 2023
Information, 11 April – 14 July 2023
Admission Period for Full-time Studies in Fine Arts 2023/24
Information, 1 – 30 April 2023
Lap-See Lam "Tales of the Altersea" at Portikus
Exhibition, 11 March – 28 May 2023
Peter Weibel (1944–2023)
Information, 1 – 15 March 2023
Winter Term Break 2022/23
Information, 13 February – 10 April 2023
The Mensa is taking a break!
Information, 13 – 20 February 2023
Rundgang 2023
Exhibition, 10 – 12 February 2023, 10:00–20:00
Water Cooler Talks 2023
Lecture, 10 – 12 February 2023
Rundgang Film Program at DFF
Exhibition, 10 – 12 February 2023
Rundgang Party 2023
Party, 10 February 2023, 23:00
Rundgang Awards 2023
Information, 10 – 24 February 2023
On the Benefits of Friendship—A symposium in honor of Prof. Dr. Isabelle Graw
Symposium, 27 January 2023, 14:00–18:00
Adam Shiu-Yang Shaw: city limits
Lecture, 24 January 2023, 19:00
Christina Li: Time, dispossessed
Lecture, 17 January 2023, 19:00

Renzo Martens: More news on the Institute for Human Activities
Lecture 30 April 2014, 19:00 Aula, Städelschule, Dürerstraße 10, 60596 Frankfurt am Main