Gavin Jantjes

Gavin Jantjes (born 1948 in District Six, Cape Town) is a South African painter, curator, writer and lecturer Quotes I had a bitter experience of growing up under apartheid. When I won a DAAD scholarship to study in West Germany I began to address this inhumanity that was an official state policy. With the exception of maybe the former Soviet Union, everyone else tolerated apartheid. Their economics were connected to apartheid. Their trade routes depended on apartheid. I made the coloring book primarily for my student colleagues, who knew very little about what was happening on the African continent and in particular, South Africa. The coloring book is an information tool which a lot of people used as education for those who knew nothing about apartheid, including the United Nations, and organisations in Geneva, who republished it in a miniature edition that was spread amongst American, West German and Swiss schools, because it was published by a Swiss organisation. That was the first time the state took official action against me. Before it was private actions, harassing me, my family, and friends as private citizens. They tried to stop me from talking about apartheid when I was in South Africa but when I left South Africa, they could no longer do this. My work was officially banned. In the 90s I moved away from printmaking and started painting the Zulu series. Just so you understand, the word Zulu, which often refers to the people in South Africa, is actually incorrect. What they really call themselves is, Amma which means people, and Zulu means the space above your head, which is the sky. So they are ‘the people of the space above your head,’ which is, in other words, God’s people. That’s the connection to the word Zulu in that series. What I did in that series was use the night sky as the background of the imagery. The research I did was related to African cosmology and astrology that starts with Egyptology and runs right through the continent. Most early African cultures and even current African cultures have a very strong relationship to the night sky. All the imagery in the Zulu series came from the understanding that the sky belongs to everyone. It doesn’t belong to any country or nation. It’s a space for every human being to engage in their own way. People have placed their mythologies, wishes, and dreams into the night sky. External links Category:1948 births Category:Living people Category:Africa