All the Exhibition Events on at the Wits Art Museum

The Wits Art Museum is a leading university art museum in Johannesburg, dedicated to showcasing African art. The collection includes over 18,000 African artworks, showcasing African artwork ranging from historic to contemporary, and the museum has an active exhibition and education programme. Here’s everything you need to know about the exhibition and walkabout schedule.

What’s on at the Wits Art Museum

What We Do Not See

What We Do Not See is an exhibition that remembers David Goldblatt in what would have been his 95th year, and explores the idea of home – the structures, places, cultures and relationships that we live within – in and around Johannesburg.

In addition to Goldblatt, the exhibition brings together a group of nine mainly Johannesburg- based photographers: Gulshan Khan, Jabulani Dhlamini, Jo Ractliffe, Jodi Bieber, Lindokuhle Sobekwa, Madoda Mkhobeni, Mark Lewis, Sabelo Mlangeni and Tshepiso Mazibuko.

Exhibition curated by Brenda Goldblatt and Fiona Rankin-Smith and supported by the David Goldblatt Legacy Trust.

Cost: Free entry

When: Running from 4 August to 24 October 2026 during the Art Museum’s opening hours, which are: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm
Where: Wits Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, Cnr Jorissen and Bertha St, Johannesburg

The Vanilla Sisters Lunch Club: Our Portraits Our Stories

A 13-Year Portrait Project by Véronique Hoog, the intention behind ‘The Vanilla Sisters Lunch Club: Our Portraits Our Stories’ is to help us better understand one another.

For the past thirteen years, Véronique had the privilege of building relationships with women living with albinism through the Vanilla Sisters Lunch Club, and what began as a portrait project grew into a journey of shared storytelling and friendship, shaped by many hours spent together around a lunch table.

The portraits are of women living with albinism, with each story speaking of resilience, goals, and achievements attained with courage and determination while navigating a world that often misunderstands difference. This exhibition is both a celebration and an act of advocacy, with each portrait accompanied by a QR code that enables visitors to listen to the sitter tell her own story. The stories are accessible via QR codes and the website virtual exhibition on veroniquehoog.com.

Cost: Free entry

When: Running from 15 September 2026 to 21 November 2026 during the Art Museum’s opening hours, which are: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm
Where: Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts at the Wits Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, Cnr Jorissen and Bertha St, Johannesburg

Technics of the Page / The Last Human Reader

This exhibition invites us to view physical books in a brand-new way. Instead of just seeing paper and ink, the artists and curators want us to think of it as an early form of technology, which directly addresses our current moment in time, where artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly taking over how text is generated and processed.

As AI models continue to read and process millions of pages in seconds, the exhibition explores what happens to literature, poetry, and storytelling when machines start doing the reading and writing for us.

Cost: Free entry

When: Running from 8 October 2026 to February 2027 during the Art Museum’s opening hours, which are: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm
Where: Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts at the Wits Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, Cnr Jorissen and Bertha St, Johannesburg

Wits Art Museum Hentie van der Merwe's Na De Jongh (Farm in the Cederberg) After De Jongh (Farm in the Cederberg). Oil paint on offset lithograph | What's on in Joburg — Na De Jongh (Farm in the Cederberg) / After De Jongh (Farm in the Cederberg). Oil paint on offset lithograph

Hentie van der Merwe’s After de Jongh

After de Jongh explores Hentie van der Merwe’s relationship with personal identity, cultural inheritance, and the enduring presence of history through painting.

Drawing inspiration from Bloekomlaan (Avenue of Gum Trees) by the Dutch-born South African painter Tinus de Jongh (1885 – 1942), Hentie van der Merwe revisits an image deeply embedded in Afrikaner visual culture and collective memory.

Cost: Free entry

When: Opens on Wednesday, 1 July 2026 at 6pm for 6.30pm. Thereafter, the exhibition runs during the Art Museum’s opening hours, which are: Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm
Where: Wits Art Museum, University of the Witwatersrand, Cnr Jorissen and Bertha St, Johannesburg