15 July 2024
To accompany the largest UK exhibition of South African artist Gavin Jantjes’ work, this summer, Whitechapel Gallery in partnership with JACK ARTS, part of BUILDHOLLYWOOD, present a large-scale poster reproduction of Jantjes’ pivotal mural The Dream, The Rumour and The Poet’s Song (1985).
The original work was created with the assistance of artist Tam Joseph, and spanned 23 metres in Railton Road’s Dexter Square, Brixton. It was produced as part of a programme of anti-racist artistic projects organised by the Greater London Council (GLC). Its unveiling in 1985 was accompanied by a street party with a local carnival band.
The Dream, The Rumour, and The Poet’s Song draws from a variety of visual sources, including Pablo Picasso’s 1937 anti-fascist painting Guernica, as well as images from The Migration Series (1940–41), a sixty-panel work by Jacob Lawrence that depicted the movement of African American people from south to north United States.
The mural presents an epic narrative that captures the resilience of the post-war Windrush generation of people who migrated from the Caribbean to the UK. The left side of the work presents intimate stories of migration, while the disturbing central composition highlights the police’s enforcement of the ‘sus’ stop and search law. A devastating image of fire evokes the tragic New Cross Massacre of 1981, which claimed the lives of thirteen young Black people and the days of the Brixton riots in 1982. The work ends on the right with an illuminated figure – poet Linton Kwesi Johnson – reading his works to a fascinated audience, symbolising the power of artistic expression amid adversity.
Jantjes and Joseph gave the mural several coats of ‘anti-graffiti spray’ upon completion, always suspecting that right-wingers might attack the wall and spray their protests on the work. However, even five years after it had been completed, there wasn’t a single mark on it – a testimony to how much it was cherished and respected by the community.
In the mid-1990s, during the construction of a new housing complex, the mural was tragically destroyed, painted over without the artist’s consent or knowledge. This act of desecration has resulted in the original mural being obscured by layers of grey paint, rendering it effectively ‘lost’ to the community it was originally created for.
Now, nearly forty years later, Gavin Jantjes’ lost mural is finally returning to Brixton through this reproduction. This homecoming will restore the mural to its rightful place, reuniting it with its community and highlighting for a further generation the issues it originally addressed. An additional billboard reproduction was placed outside the Whitechapel Gallery, to mark the opening of the artist’s major retrospective there. [X]
About Gavin Jantjes
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.
Notes to Editors
Listing Information
Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective (1970–2023)
12 June – 1 September 2024
Galleries 1, 4, 8 & 9
Admission: £12.50 (Standard ticket); £9.50 (Concessions)
Visitor Information
General Gallery Admission: Free
Opening times: Tuesday – Sunday, 11am – 6pm; Thursdays, 11am – 9pm
Whitechapel Gallery, 77 – 82 Whitechapel High Street, London E1 7QX
T + 44 (0) 20 7522 7888 | E info@whitechapelgallery.org | W whitechapelgallery.org
Press Information
For more information, interviews and images, contact:
Hannah Vitos, Rees & Co | hannah@reesandco.com | +44 (0)20 3137 8776
Will Ferreira Dyke, Whitechapel Gallery | willferreiradyke@whitechapelgallery.org
About Whitechapel Gallery
Whitechapel Gallery was founded in 1901 with the aim to bring great art to the people of East London. From the outset, the Gallery has pushed forward a bold programme of exhibitions and educational activities, driven by the desire to enrich the cultural offer for local communities and provide new opportunities for extraordinary artists from across the globe, to showcase their works to UK audiences, often for the first time.
From ground-breaking solo shows from artists as diverse as Barbara Hepworth (1954), Jackson Pollock (1958), Helio Oiticica (1969), Gilbert & George (1971), Eva Hesse (1979), Frida Kahlo (1982), Sonia Boyce (1988), Sophie Calle (2010), Zarina Bhimji (2012), Emily Jacir (2015), William Kentridge (2016), Theaster Gates (2021) and Nicole Eisenman (2023) to thought-provoking exhibitions that reflect key artistic and cultural concerns, the Gallery’s focus on bringing artists, ideas, and audiences together, remains as important today as it did over a century ago and has helped to cement the East End, as one of the world’s most exciting and diverse cultural quarters.
We are proud to be a Gallery that is locally embedded and globally connected. Its vision, under the new Directorship of Gilane Tawadros, is to ensure Whitechapel Gallery claims a distinctive and radical position in the social and cultural landscape, building on its pioneering history as a place for invigorated and inclusive engagement with contemporary art.
https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/
About JACK ARTS
JACK ARTS specialise in creating inspiring street campaigns and experiences for the culture space. Working with galleries, exhibitions, publishers, many other institutions and local clients their team understand the arts, the audience and the need to be truly creative, not just claim to be. They believe city streets offer a unique canvas and context to showcase campaigns that connect with an informed and creative audience. That is why they curate, fund and promote their own series of Your Space Or Mine projects giving artists and creatives a platform on the streets to connect with neighbourhoods and communities. With a portfolio of carefully curated poster sites in 11 cities across the UK via their parent company, BUILDHOLLYWOOD, and a creative team that can produce bespoke creative billboards, hand painted murals, interactive installations, ambient and unique experiential marketing campaigns, JACK ARTS is perfectly placed to promote the arts on the streets.
https://www.buildhollywood.co.uk
Will Ferreira Dyke
Communications Assistant
E press@whitechapelgallery.org
T +44 (0)207 539 3315
For all other communications enquiries please contact:
E press@whitechapelgallery.org
T +44 (0)20 7522 7888
