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The artifacts come from Nelson Rockefeller's private collection, who bought them in the art trade in the 1970s.
Matthieu Kasiama gets this succinct answer to the question of how the figures, the wooden masks and the ivory carvings from Central Africa came to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The man from Lusanga in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is visiting the USA for the first time.
In the Africa rooms of the Universalmuseum in Central Park, he senses a hidden power of the exhibits, and he inquires: “Were the objects really bought?” He asks the museum staff member, who leads him through the halls.
"Or were they stolen?"
“Basically bought,” replies the curator - with a big but: you don't know exactly under what circumstances they would have left Africa for most of the objects in the museum.
And in fact, it is not as clear-cut with all art objects as with the famous Benin bronzes, whose restitution has also been discussed in Germany for years and whose return is now imminent following an advance by the Humboldt Forum in Berlin.
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The Benin bronzes were looted in Africa on behalf of British colonial rulers at the end of the 19th century.
A Scottish university museum was even faster and is already initiating the return.
“White Cube” - documentary by Renzo Martens
Matthieu Kasiama thought about it for a moment, but then decided that it wasn't a good idea to just grab the objects and bring them “home”.
"It would create a conflict that is not worth it," he told Dutch artist and filmmaker Renzo Martens.
Kasiama is a protagonist in Martens' documentary "White Cube", which was released a few days ago.
He is himself an artist, a plantation worker, a victim of colonialism and post-colonialism, and recently an entrepreneur, museum founder, exhibition maker.
From the documentary “White Cube” by Renzo Martens
Source: © White Cube, Renzo Martens, Pieter van Huystee Film, 2020
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“White Cube” tells the story of a self-empowerment project.
It is set on the banks of the Kwilu in the Congo Basin on a plantation that was founded by the British industrialist and soap maker William Lever in 1911 in what was then the colony of the Belgian Congo.
We get to know Kasiama how he climbs up a twenty meter high oil palm in order to knock the fruits out of the crown with a machete.
Just like everyone has been doing for decades in the service of Unilever, one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer goods.
However, the wages are hardly enough to live on.
Renzo Martens came to Central Africa in the mid-2000s feeling guilty.
He did research in the slums of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
He made a documentary about violence and poverty.
Poverty and suppressed creativity
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“Enjoy Poverty” was shown at the Tate Gallery in London, where Martens became aware of Unilever.
The company was one of the museum's major sponsors.
Unilever thus financed exhibitions, artists, including himself.
Martens has benefited from inequality and poverty all his life, he says in the new film that will take him back to the Congo in 2012.
He is looking for an art that is real.
At the same time he is interested in how art relates to capital.
In Lusanga, the former Leverville, he finds a shabby plantation, a landscape depleted by decades of monoculture, exploited workers, but also suppressed creativity.
The Dutch artist and filmmaker Renzo Martens
Source: Max Pinckers
He seems a little naive as he trudges through the bush in black suit trousers and a white shirt, organizing a conference under palm trees, where the Congolese ecologist René Ngongo and the Canadian economist Richard Florida talk about the power of the “creative class”.
But his audience is listening.
Martens dreams of positive gentrification, he encourages the plantation workers to do artistic work, arouses their desires to recapture their land, encounters bitter resistance from the plantation owners - and fails in tears.
But the seed was sown.
Two years later, some workers got together to buy land and put an abandoned plantation back into operation.
Matthieu Kasiama says that he wants to become an artist, that he wants to do business ecologically.
He seems somehow fascinated by William Lever, but wants to get rid of his legacy.
A sculptor's workshop is set up on the plantation, where he and his colleagues create sculptures out of clay, with which they also process their experiences of repression, violence and rape.
And Renzo Martens has a brilliant idea.
Why not recreate the sculptures from chocolate, a product whose raw materials are grown in the Congo and which has been so coveted in Europe and America since colonial times?
And generate money in this way.
CAPTC sculptures
Source: Joshua Bright
The Dutchman organizes an exhibition with the sculptures, a Belgian chocolatier pours small busts in chocolate, which are sold at the vernissage.
In a couple of hours, the company generates a profit of 2,000 euros, roughly the annual wage for a small group of plantation workers in the Congo.
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Kasiama and his friends confirm to keep going.
They found the Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC), make chocolate sculptures that will be exhibited in New York in 2017 and give Kasiama the strange experience of seeing the art of his ancestors in the display cases of the Met.
The circle generates income, buys more land, restores the soil, invests in sustainable agriculture.
Museum of Rem Koolhaas in the Congo
For several years now, the collective has even had its own museum.
It was designed by the OMA office of the Rotterdam star architect Rem Koolhaas.
It's called the White Cube, not only because it is a white cube, but also because it transports the global North's symbol of appreciation for art to a palm field in Africa.
At the end of March 2021, the whitewashed walls became a projection surface for Renzo Martens' film.
15 cultural institutions worldwide are streaming “White Cube”, including the KW Institute in Berlin.
The income goes to the CATPC.
Group picture of the artist circle on the plantation in Lusanga
Source: Courtesy Renzo Martens
Renzo Martens is following the current discussion about the restitution of colonial artifacts very closely, he says in an interview with WELT: "It is really important that museums are decolonized, but it is just as important to decolonize the plantations that financed these museums."
There is a clear connection between the supposedly distant spheres.
"Some of the key museums for contemporary art were built with the profits made from plantation work," says Martens, reminiscent of the Cologne chocolate entrepreneur Ludwig.
It is not enough to have debates about restitution and programs for decolonization.
The profits from these exhibitions and the economy around them should be repaid.
Martens is convinced: “It is not enough to restitute art stolen in Africa.
The museums should give back the capital with which they were built. "
As a “white male artist from the West”, he feels it is his duty to make his contribution to overcoming colonialism.
“I'm just trying to take responsibility for a system that I've inherited and from which I benefit.
That is why I am very interested in using the privileges of the art world so that the people on the plantations can also benefit from decolonization. "