From iconic public artworks (discover a few of our favourites), intriguing street art, and established galleries and museums, to trailblazing indie spaces and the hardworking artists' studios in the City Centre, Johannesburg is a city for art lovers. We update this guide weekly to help you navigate these ever-changing creative spaces, from a curated selection of solo and group shows, artist-led walkabouts, and workshops, to guided tours, and other art-related events worth your while.
Last chance to see
Until Thu, Jan 15 – The Light We Carry gathers a remarkable inter-generational line-up at Melrose Gallery in celebration of Dr Esther Mahlangu’s 90th birthday. From Mahlangu’s iconic geometry to Ndabuko Ntuli’s textured sculptural forms, Aza Mansongi’s expressive gestures and Nicola Roos’ monumental samurai figure, the exhibition foregrounds the enduring radiance of pan-African creativity across painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media.
Until Thu, Jan 15 – Windows 86, a solo exhibition by multimedia artist Fred Clarke at W17 Gallery in Workshop 17 The Bank, is an expansive movement across mediums – painting, drawing, print, and collage, but also sonic and video experimentation. The result is an exhibition that is at once varied while being rooted in an evolving language of marks, symbols, and messages, with the artist exploring themes of technology, biology, and psychedelia, and the strange ways these intersect and shape each other.
More art highlights
Until Wed, Jan 21 – the gallery at 44 Stanley gathers a vibrant mix of artists exploring landscapes, imagined, remembered, and observed, through prints, one-offs, and collaborative editions for Shared Perspectives. With contributions from 50ty/50ty and Eleven Editions alongside works by Nicole Clare Fraser and Fiona Pole, the exhibition highlights how shared making can deepen our sense of place and creative possibility.
Until Fri, Jan 23 – Kufunga naMavara (to think in colour) is a vibrant cross-border collaboration between Gallery MOMO and First Floor Gallery Harare, celebrating Zimbabwe’s contemporary painters. This energetic group show brings together bold colourists and dynamic mark-makers, and offers a richly textured snapshot of Zimbabwe’s current art vocabulary.
Until Sat, Jan 31 – David Krut Projects offers a highlight reel of collaborations at the print workshop with A Year of Mark-Making at The Blue House Gallery. This exhibition brings together works by Mary Sibande, William Kentridge, Lady Skollie, Oupa Sibeko, Olivia Pintér, the David Krut Collective, and many more, and is a varied celebration of ink, paper, and the many hands behind the editions.
Until Sat, Jan 31 – Fresh from winning the Cassirer Welz Award 2025, artist Smiso Cele presents Ngiyiboneleni? at Bag Factory Artist Studios, a deeply personal exhibition shaped by memory, repetition, and the fragile warmth of familiar objects. Centred on the humble bread clip, Cele’s work expands his Ebhuqwini project, exploring intimacy and belonging in the spaces we occupy and remake. Quiet, tender, and beautifully observed.
Until Sat, Jan 31 – SBYA Visual Art 1984 - Now at the Standard Bank Art Lab celebrates 40 years of the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Arts, and four decades of South African art history in the process. By gathering these myriad artistic perspectives, curator Same Mdluli brings an exhibition that signposts epochal shifts and socio-political transformations in our modern and contemporary histories.
Until end January – Candice Berman Gallery at 223 Creative Hub has two exhibitions for you to enjoy. Imvelaphi sees Themba Khumalo delve into ancestry, spirituality, and identity. His latest works honour cultural continuity while reflecting on how past practices evolve in the present in a powerful meditation on belonging and transformation. And The New Vanguard returns with its fourth edition Flesh and Facade. The artists featured explore the body, identity, and material through works by a new generation of creatives grappling with vulnerability, memory, and cultural expression. The exhibition has been curated in collaboration with the University of Johannesburg and student curator Shui Hoppenstein.
Until end January – Asisebenze Art Gallery partners with Origin Art for Re-use, Re-purpose, Re-imagine. A group exhibition of artists who, through their subject matter or the ways they transform waste, point to futures of renewal and regeneration. Featuring Pam Friedman, Janet Ormond, Nic Human, Mathew Blackburn, Mmutla Mashishi, Kutlwano Monyai, Mncedi Madolo, Natasha Carstens, Nqobile Nxumalo, and Ditiro Mashigo.
Until Sat, Feb 7, 2026 – In Soft Release at David Krut's The Blue House Gallery, Heidi Fourie presents a solo exhibition of paintings and unique works on paper drawn from her 2025 residencies in wilderness settings. She explores the boundary between human and natural worlds, weaving personal encounters with wildlife and the emotional terrain of reconnection into her luminous, reflective compositions.
Until Sun, Feb 15 – After a stint at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation, BIENALSUR 2025, a decentralised international biennale, comes to Origins Centre with Our Wandering Continents, Argentine artist Marcela Cabutti's tracing of geological histories and drifting continents. In this poetic, research-driven exhibition, Cabutti uses rock archives and cartographic fragments to shift between scientific observation and imaginative leaps in a meditation on the earth as a body in motion.
Photo: Origins Centre.
Until Sun, Feb 15 – Origins Centre present Ngezandla Zethu: Stories of African Basketry in Rural Kwazulu, an exhibition of North Nguni basketry that traces weaving traditions across 20,000 years. The exhibition draws from self-help projects active in rural KwaZulu-Natal and Zululand in the late 70s–90s. The research by Pam McLaren and curation by Naeema Hussein El Kout and Goeun Botha foregrounds makers whose work has long sustained communities and cultural memory.
Until Sat, Feb 21 – Icelandic artist Erla S. Haraldsdóttir brings her multidisciplinary process to the Origins Centre with the exhibition Imagine Visionary Animals. Haraldsdóttir explores memory and ancestral narratives in her work, and by playing with an interplay of light, colour, and perspective, she creates portals that connect symbols and experiences across millennia.
Until Fri, Feb 27 – Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts at Wits Art Museum brings another exhibition exploring artists' books with GAIA: Dialogues between the book arts, natural sciences & plant humanities. It brings pressings, books, and other curious displays from the centre's collection that reflect our place in the world and our responsibility towards it.
Until Fri, Mar 20 – With Intersections: Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation, Wits Art Museum revisits the radical legacy of Bill Ainslie and the Johannesburg Art Foundation, a space that championed non-racial art education in the 1980s. Curated by Wilhelm van Rensburg, head curator at Strauss & Co, and artist Kagiso Pat Mautloa, the exhibition pairs Ainslie’s lyrical abstractions with works by Foundation affiliates, supported by archival material from Michael Gardiner. A thoughtful and timely reminder of how art can build community and shape possibility.
Until Thu, Apr 30 – One and the Many at Javett-UP brings the old and the new together. This group exhibition will explore the way in which artists navigate the relationship between the individual and the collective. By bringing leading South African contemporary artists into dialogue with the collections at Javett-UP, it promises to be a fascinating exhibition that "aims to open up different possibilities for reading images and artwork".
Ongoing – NIROX Sculpture Park and the exhibition at the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture, Villa+ the next generation is an ambitious project across their grounds and interior spaces, looking at the work and influence of Edoardo Villa. Featuring sculptures by Nicholas Hlobo, Willem Boshoff, William Kentridge, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Jane Alexander, Jackson Hlungwani, and Walter Oltmann, as well as 35 of Villa's works, the exhibition is "a conversation across generations, rooted in sculptural mastery, innovation and cultural diversity".
Save the date
Opening Fri, Jan 23 – Foto ZA Gallery opens the Johannesburg Photo Exhibition, showcasing a massive collection of 120 printed works (plus a digital showcase) submitted by photographers from over 40 countries. It’s an inclusive group show that celebrates the diversity of the medium. Join the team for drinks on opening night to browse the works and connect with the local photography community.
Opening Sat, Jan 31 – Goodman Gallery kicks off the year with a special homecoming. Was Here is the first Joburg gallery presentation for Guy Simpson, an artist born and raised in the city. Now based in Cape Town, Simpson returns with a body of work that maps the shifting suburban landscapes of his youth, specifically Orange Grove and Sydenham. His innovative, sculptural paintings translate photographic records into dense, material layers, offering a tactile meditation on peeling paint, ruptured plaster, and the changing communities of our city.
Opening Sat, Jan 31 – Asisebenze Art Gallery prepares for the upcoming solo exhibition by distinguished artist Thokozani Mthiyane, titled Residuals – A study in flesh, form and fracture. The work is the result of a four-year study into the social realities of the Johannesburg CBD, specifically focusing on the impact of synthetic heroin use among youth. It promises to be a deeply personal and unflinching body of work. Opening includes a live performance at 10:30.
Artist opportunities
Apply by Wed, Jan 28 – Calling all Joburg-based artists! The Creatory, tucked away on the top floor of 223 Jan Smuts Creative Hub in Rosebank, is looking for its next cohort of residents for 2026. This isn't your typical hide-away studio; it’s a space of "ordered chaos" where your creative process is visible to the public. Residents are hosted for periods of two weeks to two months, offering a unique chance to engage directly with visitors while you work. If you are ready to open up your practice, get your application in before the deadline.
Listen
Every Wednesday – Hosted by Refiloe Mpakanyane, Season Two of The Latitudes Podcast offers a dynamic, in-depth exploration of the art world in Africa through 12 curated episodes, structured across four interconnected themes. Through thoughtful conversations with artists, curators, collectors, and cultural leaders, it's an excellent dive into the continent’s creative ecosystem.
Programme dependent – JCAF Knowledge Talks is a series of one-on-one conversations led by art critic Ashraf Jamal. Recorded in JCAF’s Reading Room, in each episode we learn about a different discipline with an expert in the field with talks revolving around themes from JCAF's exhibitions. Most recently, Igshaan Adams, featured in the exhibition Structures, was on the show.
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