Whitechapel Gallery and Sharjah Art Foundation with The Africa Institute present the first retrospective of South African Artist and Activist Gavin Jantjes

Overview

This June, Whitechapel Gallery and Sharjah Art Foundation, in collaboration with The Africa Institute, present a major exhibition of Gavin Jantjes. Curated by Salah M. Hassan, alongside Gilane Tawadros and Cameron Foote, To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023 will take place from 12 June to 1 September 2024 at Whitechapel in London. The exhibition builds on the South African artist and activist’s major solo exhibition organised by and presented at Sharjah Art Foundation from November 2023 to March 2024.

This timely retrospective is the artist’s largest solo presentation in the UK to date, bringing together more than 100 prints, drawings, and paintings, many of which have never been shown in the UK before. The exhibition traces five decades of Jantjes’ trajectory as a painter, printmaker, writer and curator, while foregrounding his critical role in furthering the discourses around, and representations of, Africa and its diasporas.

Significantly, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the first free elections in South Africa, providing an important topical context for this presentation. Jantjes' engagement with anti-apartheid activism in the 1970s and 1980s led to his political exile, with his work being censored in his home country. To be Free! explores the impact this moment went on to have on his life and work, not least by his exile to Europe. Works on show span Jantjes’ extraordinary career, encompassing his ground-breaking print works, his compelling, figurative and metaphorical portrayals of the global Black struggle for freedom, through to his recent transition to non-figurative painting.

The exhibition also reflects on his transformative role at art institutions in the UK, Germany and Norway. In particular, To be Free! highlights Jantjes' influence on the cultural landscape of London. His seminal print series, A South African Colouring Book (1974–1975), a searing critique of apartheid, was shown at the ICA in 1976; his involvement as exhibiting artist and co-curator in the ground-breaking exhibition From Two Worlds (1986) at Whitechapel Gallery and his participation in the pivotal exhibition The Other Story (1989) at Hayward Gallery cemented his position as a major voice in the UK's art scene. In terms of public art, his Brixton mural with Tam Joseph, The Dream, The Rumour and The Poet’s Song (1985), captured the resilience of the Windrush generation, and was commissioned by the Greater London Council. With the support of creative media agency JackArts, in the week after the exhibition’s opening, Whitechapel Gallery will reproduce a poster-version of this remarkable mural in the local area.

Presented across Whitechapel Gallery’s main exhibition spaces, To Be Free! is structured as a series of chapters, each focused on key evolutions in Jantjes’ practice. Visitors will encounter a comprehensive display of his prints from the 1970s to the 1990s as well as a selection of early paintings during his years of exile in Europe. These works not only proposed new and expanded approaches to these mediums but, through their subjective considerations, drew attention to particular political situations in Africa—north and south of the equator. Jantjes’ writing at this time often referenced the words of the revolutionary leader Amílcar Cabral: ‘I don’t need to remind you that the problem of liberation is also one of culture. In the beginning it’s culture, and in the end, it’s also culture.’

Subsequent chapters also foreground Jantjes’ exploration of African cultural histories and their interactions with the artistic traditions he encountered during his European exile. For instance, the Korabra series of large-scale paintings from the 1980s draws attention to the European slave trade, clearing the ground for his epic canvases of the late 1980s that explore the entanglement of African and European art histories. His Zulu series (1986–1990) traces his evolution from figurative representation and linear narration towards allegory, metaphor and the poetic.

The final chapter in the exhibition presents Jantjes’ hitherto unseen recent paintings that advance his search for artistic freedom. Emerging organically from his preceding work, these paintings mark a complete shift to non-figuration. Mostly untitled, the works presented in this last section evoke issues of personal and cultural freedoms. His ‘Exogenic’ series (2017) represents an unshackling from expectations of what African contemporary art should look like, and the light-filled, delicately hued canvases in his ‘Witney’ series (2020), ‘Sharjah’ series (2022) and ‘Kirstenbosch’ series (2023) offer an open-ended, unencumbered invitation to audiences to rethink their relationship to painting in an increasingly globalised art world.

Despite his impressive oeuvre, Jantjes has not had a major exhibition in the UK. To Be Free! provides Jantjes with much-deserved institutional recognition. By celebrating his radical and distinct imprint on the cultural landscapes of Britain and beyond, this expansive presentation provides audiences—especially those new to his work—with an unprecedented opportunity to consider the full breadth of Jantjes' career and critical role as an agent of change: politically, ideologically and aesthetically.

Accompanying the exhibition is a new publication documenting the full breadth of the artist's career. The publication includes a foreword by Hoor Al Qasimi, a critical essay on the artist by the exhibition's curator, Salah M. Hassan, alongside contributions from writers Allison Young, Kendell Geers, Lars Elton, Dag Erik Elgin and Premesh Lalu.

A 45-minute documentary, To Be Free, by Paul Jantjes, produced by Studio 3 Oslo in Norway, will also be screened during the exhibition period.

This exhibition is curated by Salah M. Hassan, Chancellor of Global Studies University, Dean of The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE, and Distinguished Professor at Cornell University. The presentation at Whitechapel Gallery is curated in collaboration with Gilane Tawadros, Whitechapel Gallery Director, and Cameron Foote, Whitechapel Gallery Curator.

Visit Whitechapel website for visitor information.

About Gavin Jantjes

Activist, painter, printmaker, curator and writer Gavin Jantjes was born in 1948 in Cape Town, just as the apartheid regime in South Africa was beginning its ascent. Drawing on personal experience, he explores the role of art in furthering human rights, freedom of expression and cultural understanding. He has exhibited internationally, and his works can be found in the collections of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Tate, London; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has received commissions from the United Nations Refugee Council and the UN Commission on Apartheid. He has lectured at Chelsea College of Arts in London and served as artistic director for the Henie Onstad Art Center, Norway (1998–2004), and senior curator for the National Museum, Oslo (2004–2014). His many books include A Fruitful Incoherence (Iniva, 1998) and the four-volume Visual Century: South African Art in Context 1907–2007 (Wits University Press, 2010). He lives and works in Oxfordshire.

About Whitechapel Gallery

Whitechapel Gallery was founded in 1901 with the aim to bring great art to the people of East London. From the outset, the Gallery has pushed forward a bold programme of exhibitions and educational activities, driven by the desire to enrich the cultural offer for local communities and provide new opportunities for extraordinary artists from across the globe, to showcase their works to UK audiences, often for the first time. From ground-breaking solo shows from artists as diverse as Barbara Hepworth (1954), Jackson Pollock (1958), Helio Oiticica (1969), Gilbert & George (1971), Eva Hesse (1979), Frida Kahlo (1982), Sonia Boyce (1988), Sophie Calle (2010), Zarina Bhimji (2012), Emily Jacir (2015), William Kentridge (2016), Theaster Gates (2021) and Nicole Eisenman (2023) to thought-provoking exhibitions that reflect key artistic and cultural concerns, the Gallery’s focus on bringing artists, ideas, and audiences together, remains as important today as it did over a century ago and has helped to cement the East End, as one of the world’s most exciting and diverse cultural quarters. We are proud to be a Gallery that is locally embedded and globally connected. Its vision, under the new Directorship of Gilane Tawadros, is to ensure Whitechapel Gallery claims a distinctive and radical position in the social and cultural landscape, building on its pioneering history as a place for invigorated and inclusive engagement with contemporary art.

About Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Art Foundation is an advocate, catalyst and producer of contemporary art within the Emirate of Sharjah and the surrounding region, in dialogue with the international arts community. The foundation advances an experimental and wide-ranging programmatic model that supports the production and presentation of contemporary art, preserves and celebrates the distinct culture of the region and encourages a shared understanding of the transformational role of art. The foundation’s core initiatives include the long-running Sharjah Biennial, featuring contemporary artists from around the world; the annual March Meeting, a convening of international arts professionals and artists; grants and residencies for artists, curators and cultural producers; ambitious and experimental commissions; and a range of travelling exhibitions and scholarly publications.

Established in 2009 to expand programmes beyond the Sharjah Biennial, which launched in 1993, the foundation is a critical resource for artists and cultural organisations in the Gulf and a conduit for local, regional and international developments in contemporary art. The foundation’s deep commitment to developing and sustaining the cultural life and heritage of Sharjah is reflected through year-round exhibitions, performances, screenings and educational programmes in the city of Sharjah and across the Emirate, often hosted in historic buildings that have been repurposed as cultural and community centres. A growing collection reflects the foundation’s support of contemporary artists in the realisation of new work and its recognition of the contributions made by pioneering modern artists from the region and around the world.

Sharjah Art Foundation is a legally independent public body established by Emiri Decree and supported by government funding, grants from national and international nonprofits and cultural organisations, corporate sponsors and individual patrons. Hoor Al Qasimi serves as the Foundation’s President and Director. All exhibitions and events are free and open to the public.

About Sharjah

Sharjah is the third largest of the seven United Arab Emirates, and the only one bridging the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Reflecting the deep commitment to the arts, architectural preservation and cultural education embraced by its ruler, Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Sharjah is home to more than 20 museums and has long been known as the cultural hub of the United Arab Emirates. It was named UNESCO's Arab Capital of Culture for 1998 and the UNESCO World Book Capital for 2019.

Media Contact

Alyazeyah Al Marri
alyazeyah@sharjahart.org
+971 (0)6 5444113