George Hallett: Home and Exile

Exhibition Research Lab (ERL) Gallery announces George Hallett: Home and Exile an exhibition curated by Dr Christine Eyene bringing together works by South African photographer George Hallett (1942–2020) who lived in exile in Europe from 1970 to the mid-1990s. 

Introduced to literature, music, and visual arts by South African authors Richard Rive, James Matthews, and visual artist Peter E. Clarke, Hallett developed his practice as a self-taught street photographer in Cape Town in the 1960s. His early images depict street scenes in places such as the mixed area of District Six reclassified "white" by the apartheid government in 1966, and cultural figures and moments that were to become major themes throughout his career. As a South African of mixed heritage, his experience of discrimination and the lack of professional opportunities, led him to exile. He first settled in England in 1970 before moving to France and the Netherlands.

George Hallett: Home and Exile focuses on the first part of his exile, with photographs taken in England in the 1970s and 1980s. The exhibition articulates three main themes: visual artists with portraits of pioneering figures such as Gerard Sekoto, Dumile Feni and Gavin Jantjes, jazz musicians, and experimental designs for the book covers of Heinemann’s African Writers Series then led by editor James Currey. The exhibition concludes with Hallett’s return to South Africa with images of Nelson Mandela during the country’s first democratic elections in 1994, that earned him a World Press Photo award in 1995.

The photographs presented are part of the George Hallett Research Collection developed by Eyene to preserve, research, and disseminate the work of Hallett and South African artists who lived in exile during apartheid.

The accompanying public program organised with gallery assistants Kabir D’Silva and Nele Washbourne includes three conversations between the curator and guests, literature, music, and film screenings.

Wednesday, May 13, 6:30–8pm: Exile and Liberation with Gavin Jantjes
In this conversation artist Gavin Jantjes and Christine Eyene will discuss the photographer and visual artist’s friendship and collaboration over thirty years, as well as the shifts in Jantjes’s practice, from socio-politically oriented works to an aesthetic of imaginary and freedom. The discussion will also revisit Gavin Jantjes: To Be Free! A Retrospective 1970–2023 curated by Salah M. Hassan at Sharjah Art Foundation in 2023 and presented at Whitechapel Gallery (London), in 2024. 

Wednesday, June 3, 6:30–8pm: British Art History—Forgotten Chapters with Professor Tamar Garb
Art historian and curator Professor Tamar Garb will discuss the art and life of artist Dumile Feni (1942-1991) who lived in exile in London and New York from 1968 to 1991. The conversation will shed light on the artist’s experience in London in the 70s, building on Garb’s research into material from the Grosvenor Gallery and the seminal Contemporary African Art exhibition at Camden Art Centre in 1970. 

Tuesday, June 16, 6:30–8pm: Documenting Anti-Apartheid Struggle with Gideon Mendel
Followed by a screening of Biko’s Children (2008) by Breeze Yoko
Coinciding with the 50^th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising that erupted on 16 June 1976, this event will focus on the photojournalistic documentation of the anti-apartheid struggle through the work of Ernest Cole, Sam Nzima, Peter Magubane, Rashid Lombard, and Gideon Mendel’s own experience of covering the struggle as a young photographer and revisiting his archive today. It will also address the legacy of these images in the practice of a younger generation of artists.

Thursday, July 2, 5–8pm: Word. Sound. Image with Eugene Skeef and Imruh Bakari
A multidisciplinary take on George Hallett’s work, at the intersection of literature, music, and photography. The evening will include performance and music with poet and percussionist Eugene Skeef, also featured in George Hallett’s images, and a screening of Blue Notes and Exiled Voices (1992) by Imruh Bakari, filmmaker and co-director of the June Givanni PanAfrican Cinema Archive. 

George Hallett: Home and Exile exhibition and public programme are supported by Liverpool John Moores University’s Institute of Art and Technology (IAT) and Enhancing Research Cultures Grant on the theme of ‘Decolonial Research Culture’.

ERL Gallery is co-directed by Dr Christine Eyene and Dr James Schofield.