White Cube

When Dutch artist and filmmaker Renzo Martens screened his 2009 film Enjoy Poverty at the Tate Modern in London, he couldn’t help but notice a contradiction: whereas his film concerned poverty in the Congo, the very exhibition it was a part of was being co-sponsored by corporate behemoth Unilever, a company whose many branches included plantations in the Congo that exploited the same people Martens was focusing on in his film. Thus began a years-long journey as Martens returned to the Congo, this time as activist and artist, to ask hard questions about ongoing poverty, corporate exploitation, the role of art, and who profits from it.

‘A fascinating and at times extremely powerful examination into who benefits, and at what cost, from the success of art, Dutch filmmaker Renzo Martens’ provocative new documentary “White Cube” is a heartfelt film that veers between anger and frustration before ultimately succeeding as a story of an artistic campaign that bears productive fruit… [The film] asks plenty of questions and astutely comes up with some viable answers.’—Mark Adams, Business Doc Europe