The Work and the World: Gavin Jantjes, Anti-Apartheid, and the Postwar Avant-Garde

FAIN: FT-285746-22

Allison Kate Young
Louisiana State University and A&M College (Baton Rouge, LA 70803-0001)

Research leading to a book about South African-born, UK-based artist Gavin Jantjes (1948-), avant-garde art, and the anti-apartheid movement.

"The Work and the World" is the most comprehensive study to date on the work of pioneering South African-born, UK-based artist Gavin Jantjes, situating his work at the nexus of anti-apartheid activism and avant-garde art in the 20th century. A prolific printmaker and painter, Jantjes is one of the primary African artists with demonstrable connections to Pop and Conceptual art. Drawing inspiration from African history and global media, his work presents portraits of Civil Rights and First Nation leaders alongside news imagery from South Africa in flatbed compositions marked by grids and vibrant Pop coloration. I examine the eclectic art historical lineage and legacy of his work, which is reflective of the fragmentary nature of exile and may serve as a bridge connecting art historical genres often seen as discursively separate. I aim to demonstrate that transnational artists like Jantjes must be understood as central, not peripheral, to the history of twentieth-century art at large.