Gavin Jantjes
Encyclopedia
Gavin Jantjes is a South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

n painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

.

A native of Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

, Jantjes studied at the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...

's Michaelis School of Fine Art
Michaelis School of Fine Art
Michaelis School of Fine Art was founded in 1925, and is the Fine Arts department of the University of Cape Town, also housing the Michaelis Collection named for Sir Max Michaelis who in 1920 endowed the chair of Fine Art at the University. It is located at 31-37 Orange Street in Cape Town on...

 and the Hochschule für bildende Künste, in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

, where he received a master's degree
Master's degree
A master's is an academic degree granted to individuals who have undergone study demonstrating a mastery or high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice...

 in 1972.

Jantjes was a founding member of the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 anti-apartheid movement, he served for a time as consultant to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees , also known as The UN Refugee Agency is a United Nations agency mandated to protect and support refugees at the request of a government or the UN itself and assists in their voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement to...

. He settled in London in 1982, where he curated a number of exhibitions and lectured a great deal. He served on the advisory board of the Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool
Tate Liverpool is an art gallery and museum in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, and part of Tate, along with Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London. The museum was an initiative of the Merseyside Development Corporation...

 from 1992 until 1995, and was a trustee of London's Serpentine Gallery
Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Gallery is an art gallery in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, central London. It focuses on modern and contemporary art. The exhibitions, architecture, education and public programmes attract approximately 750,000 visitors a year...

 from 1995 until 1998. From 1986 until 1990 he was a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain
Arts Council of Great Britain
The Arts Council of Great Britain was a non-departmental public body dedicated to the promotion of the fine arts in Great Britain. The Arts Council of Great Britain was divided in 1994 to form the Arts Council of England , the Scottish Arts Council, and the Arts Council of Wales...

, and served as its consultant for the creation of the Institute of New International Visual Art (INIVA). For this group he coordinated a symposium
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium was a drinking party. Literary works that describe or take place at a symposium include two Socratic dialogues, Plato's Symposium and Xenophon's Symposium, as well as a number of Greek poems such as the elegies of Theognis of Megara...

 on "New Internationalism". INIVA also published his book, A Fruitful Incoherence: Dialogues with Artists on Internationalism.

Jantjes became artistic director of Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...

's Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in 1998, and he currently lives in the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

capital.

Further reading

Christine Eyene, "Gavin Jantjes, Freedom Hunters (1976): Subtexts and Intertwined Narratives" in Outi Remes and Pam Skelton (eds.), Conspiracy Dwellings: Surveillance in Contemporary Art. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010. Info at: http://www.c-s-p.org/Flyers/Conspiracy-Dwellings--Surveillance-in-Contemporary-Art1-4438-1905-0.htm
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