South African artist Gavin Jantjes on his major retrospective

Spotlight on Africa

RFI's Spotlight on Africa met with artist Gavin Jantjes to chat about his To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970-2023. The exhibition traces his journey as "a creative agent of change" from South Africa to Europe, celebrating his multifaceted roles as painter, printmaker, writer, curator and activist.

In this episode we hear from the artist and from Hoor Al-Qasimi, director of the Sharjah Art Foundation and the president of the Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE, who helped organise the London retrospective.

Jantjes's formative years in Cape Town coincided with the early years of South African apartheid, and his journey has since embodied a quest for artistic emancipation, with a freedom not bound by the Eurocentric gaze or expectations of black creativity.

For Jantjes, this quest has meant a life of itinerant exile manifesting in multiple careers.

Structured into chapters, To Be Free! explores his engagement with anti-apartheid activism from the 1970s to the mid-1980s, his transformative role at art institutions in Europe, his compelling figurative portrayals of the global black struggle for freedom, and his recent transition to non-figurative painting.

This retrospective also provides insights into Jantjes’ curatorial initiatives, written contributions, and wider advocacy, which had a significant impact on both African and African diaspora art on the global contemporary art scene.

It coincides with the 30th anniversary of the end of apartheid in South Africa.

The exhibition is at the Whitechapel Gallery, London (12 June – 1 September 2024), after opening at the Sharjah Art Foundation from 18 November 2023 to 10 March 2024, and was organised in collaboration with The Africa Institute, Sharjah.

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Episode mixed by Erwan Rome.

Spotlight on Africa is a podcast from Radio France Internationale.