Past Event
The Whitechapel Gallery is committed to making all of our events as accessible as possible for every audience member. Please contact access@whitechapelgallery.org if you would like to discuss a particular request and we will gladly discuss with you the best way to accommodate it.
– Information about access on site at the gallery is available here https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit/access/
– This includes information about Lift access; Borrowing wheelchairs & seating; Assistance Animals; Parking; Toilets and baby care facilities; Blind & Partially Sighted Visitors; Subtitles and transcripts; British Sign Language (BSL) and hearing induction loops; Deaf Messaging Service (DMS).
About This Event
– This event takes place in the Zilkha Auditorium at Whitechapel Gallery
– You must purchase a ticket to attend the event. Concession tickets are available. If you require a Personal Assistant to support your attendance, we can offer them a seat free of charge, but it must be arranged in advance.
– If the ticket price affects your attendance, please email tickets@whitechapelgallery.org to be added to the guest list (no questions asked, but dependent on availability).
– This event is suitable for those over the age of 16
– We are unable to provide British Sign Language interpretation for this event
– We are unable to provide live closed captioning or CART for this event.
– This event last approximately 1.5 hours. There are no rest breaks currently scheduled during this event.
– An audio recording of the event can be obtained by emailing publicprogrammes@whitechapelgallery.org following the event.
Transport
– To the best of our knowledge, there are no planned disruptions to local transport on the date of the event.
– Our nearest train station – Aldgate East Underground (1 min) is not wheelchair accessible. The closest wheelchair accessible stations are Whitechapel (15 min), Shoreditch High Street (15 min) or Liverpool Street (15 min).
– Free parking for Blue Badge holders is available at the top of Osborn Street in the pay and display booths for an unlimited period. Spaces are available on a first come, first served basis.
Live Recording
Please note: we audio record all events for the Whitechapel Gallery Archive and possible future online publication via Soundcloud.
Join artist Gavin Jantjes in conversation with art historian and curator Sarat Maharaj, as they uncover the ideas and themes explored in Jantjes’ exhibition To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023. The exhibition traces his career from his formative years in Cape Town during the early years of South African apartheid to his recent transition to non-figurative painting.
Activist, painter, printmaker, curator and writer Gavin Jantjes (b. 1948, South Africa, lives and works in the UK) was born in Cape Town just as the apartheid regime in South Africa was beginning its ascent. Drawing on personal experience, he explores the role of art in furthering human rights, freedom of expression and cultural understanding. He has exhibited internationally, and his works can be found in the collections of the South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Tate, London; and Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has received commissions from the United Nations Refugee Council and the UN Commission on Apartheid. He has lectured at Chelsea College of Arts in London and served as artistic director for the Henie Onstad Art Center, Norway (1998–2004), and senior curator for the National Museum, Oslo (2004–2014). His many books include A Fruitful Incoherence (Iniva, 1998) and the four-volume Visual Century: South African Art in Context 1907–2007 (Wits University Press, 2010). He lives and works in Oxfordshire.
Sarat Maharaj is Professor of Visual Art and Knowledge Systems, Lund University/Malmo Art Academy, Sweden as well as Research Professor, Goldsmiths University of London where he was Professor of Art History/Theory (1980–2005). He was the Rudolf Arnheim Professor at the Philosophy Faculty of the Humboldt University, Berlin (2001–2002) and Stedelijk Fellow 2018 at the University of Amsterdam.
His curatorial projects include Gothenburg Biennale: Pandemonium: art in a time of creativity fever (2011); There Is Always a Cup of Sea to Sail, 29th São Paulo Biennale (2010); Farewell to Postcolonialism, Towards a Post-Western Modernity, Guangzhou Triennial (2008); Knowledge Lab, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2005); documenta 11, Kassel (2002); and retinal.optical. visual.conceptual…, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2002) with Richard Hamilton and Ecke Bonk.
