Renzo Martens

Renzo Martens lives in Brussels, graduated from the Rietveld Academy in 1996, and finished a masters program in Culture Studies at the Free University in Brussels in 2000. He has recent presentations and exhibitions at Tate Modern (London), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven). The first film in this series „Episode 1“ (2003), documents Martens' illegal trip to the war zone Chechnya.

“Enjoy Poverty” (2008) was presented at the 6th Berlin Biennale 2010.

In 2010, Renzo Martens founded the Institute for Human Activities, with the aim of carrying out a five-year “gentrification programme” in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The opening seminar was organized in collaboration with the Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), the Dutch public service station VPRO, and the 7th Berlin Biennale. 

For almost a decade now the dutch artist Renzo Martens has been working on a series of films which examines the role of the camera in places of severe political unrest, utilizing performance and satire to create metafilms that raise questions about the use of journalism and documentation. He starts from the observation that the impact of “artistic interventions” in locations such as Congo, Peru, or the Parisian banlieue remains largely symbolic.