TransCape: Gavin Jantjes resigns
The following letter was sent out to artists scheduled to appear on TransCape last week. For more information, read the interview with the new CAPE team.
From:Gavin Jantjes
Artistic director
To: Artists invited to participate in the TRANS CAPE exhibition
To all the artists,
It is with regret that I have to inform you that the Board of CAPE Africa Platform have not received all the money promised for the completion of the TRANS CAPE exhibition.
After the postponement in October last year this was not good news. Following an
intense and fruitful brainstorming session of the Cape Africa Platform team and the Board of CAPE, a new plan has been proposed to you. Africa Platform remains committed to its vision to culturally connect South Africa and Africa and to reinvigorate art on the continent.
Considering the alternative, the board decided to take the positive elements of the Trans Cape exhibition curation and move forward to the production of an event that would invite the artists from the TRANS CAPE exhibition list to Cape Town, to make use of the exhibition venues to create their own interaction with the city and its people. A new team headed by curator Gabi Ngcobo and project director Jonathan Garnham will organize and manage this event. The XCAPE exhibition of over 200 local artists will open unchanged on the 24th March.
I am extremely disappointed that the TRANS CAPE exhibition cannot be completed and I can only offer you my sincere apology for that. Your solidarity for what the curators Khwezi Gule, Gabi Ngcobo and myself have been working towards has been a great stimulus to our common belief that Africa needs a contemporary visual art event on the continent, to stimulate its development. It is in this spirit that I ask you to consider the event that CAPE is now planning. Should you need more information please contact Gabi or Jonathan at CAPE.
I thank you for your our solidarity and support.
Sincerely
Gavin Jantjes
Oslo,
Norway
22 Feb 2007
