Gavin Jantjes was born in 1948 in Capetown, South Africa. He studied at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town, and the Hochschule für bildende Künste, Hamburg, where he received his MA degree in 1972. He was a founding member of the German Anti-Apartheid movement and he served as a consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. In 1982 he settled in Britain where he curated a number of exhibitions, lectured widely and served on the advisory boards of the Tate Gallery, Liverpool (1992-1995), and a trustee of the Serpentine Gallery, London (1995-1998). He was a member of the Arts Council of Great Britain (1986-1990) and served as the Arts Council's consultant for the creation of the Institute of New International Visual Art (INIVA), for which he coordinated the "New Internationalism" symposium. His book, A Fruitful Incoherence: Dialogues with Artists on Internationalism was published by INIVA. In 1998 he became artistic director of the Henie-Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo, where he now lives.
