From Exile to Liberation with Gavin Jantjes

Join us at ERL Gallery for the first in a series of conversations with South African artists and art historians as part of the public programme associated to the exhibition .

The programme launches with a conversation between artist Gavin Jantjes and Dr Christine Eyene. Gavin Jantjes, whose political work was banned in South Africa during apartheid, will share about his journey into exile and the shifts in his practice, from socio-politically oriented works to aesthetics of imaginary and freedom.

Photographed by Hallett on many occasions, including in a portrait that is part of the ERL Gallery exhibition, the artist will discuss his friendship and creative collaboration with Hallett, including his curation of exhibitions featuring the photographer at Aschenbach Galerie (Amsterdam) in 1988 and Henie Onstad Art Center (Olso) in 2001.

The conversation will also revisit Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023 presented at Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023 and Whitechapel Gallery (London) in 2024.

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Biography

Gavin Jantjes (b. 1948, Cape Town, South Africa; lives and works in Oxfordshire)

Activist, painter, printmaker, curator, and writer Gavin Jantjes was born in the year apartheid was introduced in South Africa. Drawing on personal experience, he explores the role of art in furthering human rights, freedom of expression, and cultural understanding.

Jantjes has exhibited internationally. His latest exhibition Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970-2023, curated by Salah M. Hassan launched at Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023 before touring to Whitechapel Gallery, London, in 2024 in a display then curated by Gilane Tawadros and Cameron Foote. His work is in the collections of Iziko – South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate, UK.

He was Senior Curator at National Museum (2004–2014) and Artistic Director of Henie Onstad Art Center (1998–2004) both in Oslo. Prior to that, he lectured at Chelsea College of Arts, London. His books include the four-volume Visual Century: South African Art in Context 1907–2007 (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2011) and A Fruitful Incoherence (London: Iniva, 1998).

In the 1970s Jantjes received commissions from the United Nations Refugee Council and the UN Commission on Apartheid that contributed to raise global awareness on the injustice of the apartheid regime.

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This event is supported by LJMU’s Institute of Art and Technology (IAT) and Enhancing Research Culture Grant.

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Photo: George Hallett, Gavin Jantjes in his studio in Wiltshire, 1986. Courtesy of George Hallett Research Collection

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