Dutch pavilion at Venice Biennale has been taken over by Congolese collective CATPC

As part of the preparation for the Venice Biennale, CATPC and artist Renzo Martens celebrated the return of our ancestral sculpture Balot. The sculpture arrived in the White Cube in Lusanga, Congo, from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA), Richmond, USA.

On 19 March, in the presence of their community, CATPC held a ceremony to welcome back the sculpture. During the ceremony, members of CATPC re-enacted the history of the 1931 Pende uprising, which is directly linked to the Balot sculpture, and performed ‘The Judgement of the White Cube’.

In a ritualistic procession, they took the sculpture through the village to the Kisendu, where the sculpture was placed between other ancestral statues and sculptures of CATPC.

The sculpture is now installed in the White Cube in anticipation of the exhibition, which will open as part of the Dutch entry to La Biennale di Venezia on 20 April.

We are thankful to the Mondriaan Fund, to the VMFA, and most of all to VMFA curator Dr Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba, who traveled with the sculpture and made the loan possible.

Scenery is currently filming a documentary about the community of Congolese plantation workers who uses the art world in an epic struggle to reclaim their land, confiscated and exploited by Unilever, and restore their forests.