Gavin Jantjes
The Exogenic Series (Aqua)
Gavin Jantjes, The Exogenic Series (Aqua), 2017
Oslo Kunstforening is proud to present the recent paintings of the South African artist Gavin Jantjes.
In Oslo as well as abroad, Gavin Jantjes is known to most as the former senior curator for international art at the National Museum in Oslo or the former artistic director of Henie Onstad Art Center. Jantjes has been a key opinion former and contributor to the contemporary art scene in Norway. His love for painting made him curate An Appetite for Painting, his final exhibition for the National Museum in 2014. The research undertaken for this exhibition paved the way for his return to the studio and the daily practice of painting.
Painting is rapidly returning to the arenas of cultural discourse and exhibition practice. It is timely that non-figurative painting can once again occupy public attention not through its references or depictions, but through our sensory reading of a painted surface. The works exhibited function as catalysts for ideas and reminiscences about place, the environment and the broad array of things formed on the surface of the earth.
Gavin Jantjes, The Exogenic Series (Aqua), 2017
Since the start of 2015, Jantjes has focused on a series of fourteen large canvases entitled The Exogenic Series (Aqua). These non-figurative paintings marks Jantjes’ radical departure from the political prints he exhibited in the 1970’s and 1980’s and the poetic paintings he produced throughout the 1990’s. This exhibition marks his second solo presentation in Oslo. His first exhibition, held at Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in 1976, presented his politically motivated work which included the artist’s signature work A South African Colouring Book (1974).
The exhibition presents the tangible results of his investigations into what remains possible in the field of painting after post-modernism and conceptualism. The fourteen canvases ask a simple question. Is it possible, in an era of rapid digital communication, to glean any meaning or interpretation from a work of art that depicts nothing recognisable, has no abstracted images nor text as a visual aid?
A conversation between Gavin Jantjes and Dag Erik Elgin will take place Wednesday 18 October at 6 pm.
Gavin Jantjes, The Exogenic Series (Aqua), 2017
Bio
Over the past twenty years Gavin Jantjes has maintained an exhibition practice, exhibiting his earlier prints and paintings in galleries around the world. He is currently one of the artists included in the recently opened exhibition «The Image of War» at Bonniers Konsthall in Stockholm. He has held solo exhibitions at the ICA, London; Kulturhuset, Stockholm; Gothenburg Art Museum, Sweden; the Henie Onstad Art Centre, Oslo, Norway; Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, Germany; and been included in thematic exhibitions at Hayward Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery and the British Museum in London; the Havana Biennale, Cuba; the Bronx Museum, New York; MoMA PS1, New York; the National Museum of African Art Smithsonian, Washington D.C., USA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, USA; Haus Der Kunst, Munich, Germany; the South African National Gallery, Cape Town and the Museuo Picasso, Barcelona, Spain. He is represented in several collections, including those of Tate and the V&A, UK; the National Museum of African Art Smithsonian, Washington D.C., USA; the South African National Gallery, Cape Town, the Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia as well as in numerous private and corporate collections around the world.