Exhibition: South Africa: The Art of a Nation

I travelled to London in order to visit a couple of exhibitions which I hoped would be useful for my contextual writing assignment. The South Africa exhibition at the British Museum was my first. I had high hopes and spent a long time looking around. Unfortunately, once inside I was not allowed to take photos (except for these).

This exhibition left me with mixed feelings. It was not a mind-blowing revelatory visit and, though it was relative informative and I got the chance to see some new pieces of art, I felt let down by its contemporary section. I was hoping for new and exciting new art but there were too few pieces. Maybe my expectations were misguided: this venue is not an edgy new art gallery but THE British Museum with an ingrained historical perspective.

However, I was pleasantly surprises when, among the anti-apartheid section, I came across a familiar face - literally. I looked a row of prints and recognised the face of the artist, Gavin Jantjes, who at the time he made this specific set of prints visited my parents in Germany.