The Institute for Human Activities (IHA) asserts that even when art critically engages with global inequalities, it most often brings beauty, jobs, and opportunity to the places where such art is exhibited, discussed and sold – London, Venice, New York and Berlin. At its secret artist colony in the Congolese rainforest the IHA aims to make critique profitable in those places that provide artistic content, thus recalibrating art’s critical mandate.
In 2012, the IHA began ‘A Gentrification Program’ on a former Unilever plantation, 800 kilometers from Kinshasa, on a tributary of the Congo River. As Congolese plantation workers cannot live off plantation labour alone, they will now, with the help and support of the IHA, try to live off their artistic engagement with plantation labour. Two small self-portraits, cast in cocoa from a Congolese plantation, are now available for € 39,95.
Self Portrait by Djonga Bismar.
Self Portrait by Manenga Kibwila.
Helmut Smits
‘Unseen works’ (2008) by Helmut Smits
CBK de Krabbedans has a collection of 4500 artworks for rent or sale. Smits asked them to put together a selection of artworks that had been in their collection for quite some time but had never been rented or sold. He then exhibited this selection.