If you’re looking for inspiring art exhibitions in Johannesburg, the city offers an extraordinary lineup of both emerging and established talent across diverse mediums. From immersive installations at the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (Structures) and the new Standard Bank Art Lab (Follow the Blue Thread) at Nelson Mandela Square, to thought-provoking photography at Roger Ballen’s Centre of Photography (PSYCHOPOMP!) and socially engaged works at Guns & Rain (UNRESOLVED), there’s something to engage every visitor. Scroll to see our top picks.
Gallery MOMO: Cacophony of Narratives
Cacophony of Narratives at Gallery MOMO brings together a powerful ensemble of artists—Vivien Kohler, Conrad Botes, Khaya Witbooi, Khaya Sineyile, Phoka Nyokong, Joel Mpah Dooh, Ransome Stanley, and Leffi Tladi—each exploring the layered complexities of contemporary storytelling.
In a world where dominant histories often silence marginalised truths, this exhibition embraces dissonance as a site of creativity and resistance. From bold figurative works to fragmented abstractions, each piece offers a distinct visual language that interrogates themes of identity, memory, and socio-political commentary.
Like a jazz composition, this is one of the more powerful group art exhibitions in Johannesburg that thrives on multiplicity—where contradictions coexist, perspectives overlap, and new meanings emerge from the fray. The result is a vibrant, challenging, and compelling chorus that invites reflection on the layered realities of our time.
Cost: Free entry
When: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm. Saturday, 9am to 3pm. Closed on Sunday
Where: 52 7th Ave, Parktown North, Randburg
NIROX Sculpture Park and Gallery: VILLA + the Next Generation
VILLA + the Next Generation is a tribute to the life, work, and enduring influence of Edoardo Villa. This ambitious exhibition spans the NIROX Sculpture Park and indoor galleries, showcasing large-scale works that reflect Villa’s legacy through the lens of contemporary South African artists.
Featuring Nicholas Hlobo, Willem Boshoff, William Kentridge, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Jane Alexander, Jackson Hlungwani, and Walter Oltmann, the exhibition creates a dialogue across generations. Together, these artists explore sculptural mastery, innovation, and cultural diversity, highlighting how Villa’s pioneering approach continues to inspire and shape South African art today.
Cost: R150 per adult and R80 per child between 2 – 12 years old
When: Saturday and Sunday, 10am to 4pm. Closed from Monday to Friday
Where: R540 Kromdraai Rd, Kromdraai, Krugersdorp
The Melrose Gallery: Junkyard Dogs
Junkyard Dogs at The Melrose Gallery brings together two acclaimed South African artists, Willie Bester and Pitika Ntuli. Both are masters of transformation—upcycling and reimagining discarded materials to create powerful sculptural works. By disassembling and reassembling metal and other fragments, they craft striking new forms that speak to resilience, ingenuity, and survival.
Africa has long been treated as the world’s dumping ground, yet African artists have turned excess and waste into sites of creativity. Bester and Ntuli embody this spirit: retrofitters and fabricators who forge meaning from industrial surplus and natural matter alike.
The title Junkyard Dogs evokes their unyielding energy. Both artists emerged from a culture of resistance, shaping works that command attention through scale, material, and presence. With metal and granite as their mediums, Bester and Ntuli produce art that is fierce, declarative, and unforgettable—guardians of memory, freedom, and the power of reinvention.
Cost: Free entry
When: Running until 31 October 2025. Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays, 9am to 5pm
Where: Melrose Arch, 10 The High St, Melrose, Johannesburg
Candice Berman Gallery: Summer Salon 2025
Summer Salon 2025 celebrates the abundance, rhythm, and multiplicity of the season, bringing together a constellation of artists across sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, and ceramics. Conceived as a gathering space rather than a hierarchy, the exhibition allows works to interact, creating unexpected contrasts and harmonies—bronze meets charcoal, clay meets canvas, metal collides with colour.
Artists contributing to the salon include Helen van Stolk, Claire Lichtenstein, Sarah Grace, Louise Almon, John Vusi Mfupi, Marke Meyer, David Kuijers, Astrid Dahl, Jasmine Jagger, and Cyrille Chamayou, alongside Dalingcebo Ngubane, Michelle Kruger, Thabo Pitso, Solomon Omogboye, Helen Joseph, Restone Maambo, and Elli Wahl. Their practices explore mark-making, portraiture, assemblage, sculptural form, identity, memory, landscape, and community.
Through this vibrant dialogue, Summer Salon 2025 reflects the energy of light, renewal, and possibility. The exhibition invites visitors to move between contemplation and playfulness, offering a collective moment that embodies the vitality and multiplicity of contemporary art.
Cost: Free entry
When: Running from 22 September to 31 October 2025. Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm. Saturday, 9am to 4:30pm Closed on Sunday
Where: 223 Jan Smuts Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg
New Gallery! The Standard Bank Art Lab: Follow the Blue Thread – It’s Woven Into Who We Are
Follow the Blue Thread: It’s Woven Into Who We Are opens as the very first exhibition at the new Standard Bank Art Lab in Johannesburg. Centred on the transformative power of African art, the showcase explores tapestry as a meeting point of craft, culture, and commerce.
Created from mohair and brought to life through collaborations between leading artists and master weavers, the works on show highlight the deep ties between textile and visual art. The exhibition features iconic pieces by Penny Siopis, Judith Mason, Sam Nhlengethwa, William Kentridge, and Miriam Ndebele.
Rather than treating the corporate collection as a static archive, the collection of art positions it as a living resource—one that preserves cultural memory, asks whose stories are being told, and considers how art can shape the creative economies of the future.
Cost: Free entry
When: Monday to Saturday, 9am to 4pm. Sunday, 9am to 1pm
Where: Nelson Mandela Square, 5th St, Sandown, Sandton
The Gallery at 44 Stanley: Flatland – Drawing Depth
Flatland: Drawing Depth at The Gallery at 44 Stanley invites audiences to step into a space where surface and depth merge. This exhibition considers how flat images can conjure immersive, emotional worlds—blurring the line between two and three dimensions.
Through the interplay of line, light, and form, Flatland asks: how do we find depth in simplicity, or space within flatness? The works reveal the subtle force of the natural world, and our own presence within it—on paper, and beyond.
The exhibition features works by 50ty/50ty Prints, The Artists’ Press, Roxy Kaczmarek, Io Makandal, Thobile ‘Sana King’ Mavuso, Thanduxolo Nombali Phakathi, and Fiona Pole.
Cost: Free entry
When: Monday to Friday, 9am to 4:30pm. Saturday, Sunday and Public Holidays, 9am to 3pm
Where: 44 Stanley Ave, Braamfontein Werf, Johannesburg
Rainbow Nation Comics presents YOUNG NELSON: Renewal/Rejuvenation
Wits Art Museum opens Rainbow Nation Comics’ YOUNG NELSON: Renewal/ Rejuvenation exhibition.
The exhibition features digital prints, comic books, an animation trailer and original music. YOUNG NELSON: Renewal/ Rejuvenation provides an opportunity for audiences to visually witness the creation of comic books from sketches and storyboards to the digitising process.
Central to the exhibition is ‘The Young Nelson, New Beginnings, New Stories, New Heroes Anthology’ comic book project. The project captures tales of new and young love. It features new friendships and villains with each character serving as a new and modern interpretation of the spirit of Ubuntu and how it can be best practiced in contemporary South Africa.
Cost: Free entry
When: Opening Tuesday, 30 September 2025 at 6pm for 6.30pm. The exhibition is showing from 30 September to 22 November 2025 during the Art Museum’s opening hours.
Where: Wits Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, Cnr Jorissen and Bertha St, Johannesburg
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