Bathtub Lecture Stedelijk Museum
30 November 2024
During the third Bathtub Lecture, on 30 November at 15:00, artists Renzo Martens and Ced’art Tamasala, will outline a shared future for the Stedelijk in which the museum is by and for everyone.
At 10.30, before the Bathtub Lecture, Renzo Martens will dig deeper into one of the corners of the Stedelijk Museum. Martens draws inspiration from an iconic work by artist Jan Dibbets from the 1969 show Op losse schroeven, in which Dibbets questioned the role of the museum and the conventional experience of art. Dibbets dug trenches at each corner of the building to expose the museum’s foundations. Martens’ partial re-enactment of Jan Dibbets’ historic work aims to dig deeper into the museum’s foundations.
Communities of plantation workers were forcibly put to work on plantations during the colonial era. The museum was built on profits derived from forced labour and speculation on potential future earnings. The perspectives of these communities are not reflected in the workings of the museum. Martens argues that the cultural narrative has little meaning unless these communities are also included in the Stedelijk.
Ced’art Tamasala will talk about his recent visit to these plantations in Indonesia. As far as Tamasala was able to determine, no Stedelijk Museum curator in recent history has visited the communities on these plantations to see who they are and what they do. Tamasala will share his thoughts on the expectations that communities such as these, and his own, the CATPC, have for the museum’s future.
Martens says: “Workers are co-authors of the Stedelijk. This awareness can form the basis for a museum that is by and for everyone.”
Start performance: 10:30 (outside of Stedelijk Museum, Van Baerlestraat side)
Start lecture: 15:00 (Auditorium Stedelijk Museum)
CATPC in conversation with the community at one of the plantations that financed the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. Top: Agus Evan, Lanang Adi Prayoga, Sa'i, Mbuku Kimpala, Aditya Yuda, Sujianto, Juawariyah. Bottom: Sumardi, Nyamat Suyanto, Ced'art Tamasala, Joko Wiji Santoso, Matthieu Kasiama, Sugeng Riyanto. Photo: Brahmantyo Puta. Copyright Scenery / CATPC / Human Activities, 2024.