A timely retrospective of Oxfordshire-based South African painter and printmaker Gavin Jantjes is now open at Whitechapel Gallery. It represents his largest solo presentation in the UK to date, bringing together more than five decades of the artist’s diverse and distinctive practice.
Through over 100 prints, drawings, and paintings, as well as archival material, the exhibition celebrates Jantjes as a significant and critical agent of change while tracing his development as a painter, printmaker, writer, curator, and activist.
Structured into chapters spanning 1970 to the present, To Be Free! focuses on pivotal phases in Jantjes’s life, from his formative years in Cape Town during the early years of South African apartheid (1948–1994), his transformative role at art institutions in the UK, Germany, and Norway, his compelling figurative portrayals of the global Black struggle for freedom, to his recent transition to non-figurative painting. Jantjes’ journey embodies a quest for artistic emancipation, marked by a search for an autonomous form, freed from Eurocentric traditions and expectations of Black creativity.
The exhibition also highlights Jantjes’ influence on the cultural landscape of London. His anti-apartheid print series A South African Colouring Book was shown at the ICA in 1976, and his role as both exhibiting artist and co-curator in the groundbreaking 1986 Whitechapel Gallery exhibition From Two Worlds cemented his position as a major voice in the UK’s arts scene.
Installation view courtesy of Whitechapel Gallery
Importantly, 2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the first free general election in South Africa, resulting in Nelson Mandela’s eventual presidency. Jantjes returned to South Africa in 1994 to participate in the momentous event after spending over twenty years in exile from his home country. His active critique of the oppression and discrimination under the Afrikaner Nationalist Party had led to his exile, with his entire artistic and academic career censored.
To Be Free! provides an unprecedented opportunity for audiences, especially those new to his work, to recognize and explore the full breadth of Jantjes’ career and his leading role in advancing the discourses around and representation of Africa and its diasporas.
The exhibition is in its final days, and will finish on September 1.
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Untitled, 1989, by Gavin Jantjes. Photograph: © Gavin Jantjes, courtesy Whitechapel Gallery
