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.
Johannesburg art picks of the week (Thu, May 7 – Thu, May 14, 2026)
It's a full week, and it should be a nice warm-up for what is looking like a crazy May. First Thursdays kicks things off with a sprawling multi-venue night across Rosebank and Melville, the weekend brings two significant solo openings, and the following Thursday delivers a one-two institutional punch in Sandton and Pretoria. Plan accordingly and make sure to read this before you leave home.1. Keyes Art Night
Thu, May 7 from 17:00: Keyes Art Night is the reliable anchor of First Thursdays in Rosebank, and this month they give plenty of reasons to attend. At Lizamore on Keyes, Rosemary Marriott, Moloko Mabotja and Jenny Nijenhuis excavate early memory and identity across painting, printmaking and cloth sculpture. Then, at BKhz, Ayobola "Zak" Kekere-Ekun's FMC: Female Main Character is a literary reckoning in visual form – an artist's lifetime of reading women in fiction and the handful of characters whose inner contradictions refused to stay on the page. Groundwork in Gallery 1 provides the inspiration before you make your own rock art at Visions in Stone at the Makers' Table. Then eat somewhere along the strip – Marble, The Prawnery, Momo Kuro and Kanpai are all in easy reach – and close out at MIX Cocktail Bar.
2. Tattoos and art at 223 Jan Smuts Creative Hub
Photo: Candice Berman Gallery.
Thu, May 7 from 17:00 – 20:00: Belgrade-born, Joburg-based painter Maja Maljević inverts conventional image-making logic at 223 Jan Smuts Creative Hub – colour arrives first here, and form either follows or doesn't. With works from the last 10 years, it's a great look at how her use of colour has evolved in the exhibition Colour Before Image. And for something different, Be Kind Tattooing sets up in the gallery for one night only, offering curated flash designs drawing from Hannalie Taute's exhibition Mother, Monster, Stitch. The hub closes at 20:00, so make this your first stop on the First Thursdays circuit before crossing to Keyes.
3. Melville Art Mile
Thu, May 7 from 16:00 – 21:00: This month Joburg Artist Market pairs Rhandzi Mathonsi's illustration with Chris Morris's ceramics and Joseph Abongile Dludla's photography, plus an interactive art bar. The Resource Gallery hosts Finding Your -ism, five artists making work about personal philosophy as lived practice. The night ends – or continues – at **Smoking Kills Bar** with a Talk + Rave where the panellists later get behind the decks (running until 02:00). Entry is free for exhibitions only; R150 gets you full access to workshops and unlimited shuttle; R450 VIP adds a guided tour, wine and snacks. Get your tickets here, this is just a small peek at what's in store.
4. Walkabout at Wits Origins Centre
Sat, May 9 from 10:00 – 11:00: Make sure you're at Wits Origins Centre for a walkabout of Atlas of Uncertainty: Transforming African Cityscapes with curator Carina Tenewaa Kanbi. An hour well spent before the rest of the day kicks in, the exhibition maps how people navigate Accra, Johannesburg and Nairobi through essays, soundscapes and new ways of visualising urban life. It closes Fri, Jul 3 so you have time, but the guided walk is the way to do it.
5. Two solos at Asisebenze Art Gallery
Sat, May 9 from 10:30 – 15:30: Asisebenze Art Gallery in Marshalltown opens a double bill. Mmutla Mashishi's Sepekere – The Nail that Refused to Break transforms the nail into a symbol of survival – fragile materials, coded markings and rusted objects carrying the weight of memory and resistance. Alongside it, Mncedi Madolo's Kuomboka: Trust the Water repositions water not as infrastructure but as ancestral presence, drawing from the Kuomboka ceremony to insist that sacred knowledge persists within the urban grid. Both open at 10:30 and run until Sat, Jun 13. Free admission.
6. gender/genre at kumalo | turpin
Sat, May 9 from 10:00 – 13:00: We've been waiting for this for a while: kumalo | turpin are set to open their new gallery at Nine Yards with the inaugural exhibition gender/genre. A group show bringing together a bold range of artists working across painting, sculpture and photography who are reshaping the visual and conceptual language of contemporary South African art. Just like genre has organised art, so too has gender organised people and the artists on show – including Boemo Diale, Eva Lundon, Laura Viruly and Moësha Magagula – refuse both systems of containment. The curators describe it as a map rather than a manifesto: partial, shifting and deliberately unresolved.
7. Surrogate Emotions at Gallery MOMO
Sat, May 9 from 11:00 – 15:00: Following his presentation at Expo Chicago 2026, Blessing Blaai opens his solo at Gallery MOMO in Parktown North with a new body of work developed during his residency with the gallery. Surrogate Emotions examines how memory, environment and representation converge to produce feeling that stands in for lived experience. Working across painting and mixed media, Blaai renders interior psychological states through fragmented, layered compositions that sit somewhere between figuration and reckoning.
8. Happening next Thursday
Thu, May 14 from 17:30: Recently there have been a few exhibitions worth seeing in Pretoria and Javett-UP adds another with Thero Makepe's first institutional solo. In We Didn't Choose to be Born Here, Makepe weaves his own family stories into the broader socio-political fabric of Botswana and South Africa through staged portraiture, documentary images and personal and public archival material. RSVP for the opening here.
Thu, May 14 from 16:00 – 19:00: Artist Proof Studio at 35 opens at Art&About (8 Merchant Place, Fredman Drive, Sandton). Thirty-five years of South African printmaking legacy, collected in a single exhibition featuring APS alumni, emerging voices and collaborating artists, a must if you missed their show at Strauss & Co. RSVP by Thu, May 7 to renee@artistproofstudio.co.za.
More Joburg art highlights
SEE BEFORE THE END OF MAYUntil Sat, May 30 – Goodman Gallery presents Kate Gottgens' Her Own Myth, the artist's first show with the gallery, assembling female figures drawn from myth, fairytale and folklore on canvases that blur recognition and invention.
Until Sun, May 31 – Fashion_The Image at Roger Ballen Centre for Photography traces the evolution of fashion photography in South Africa and its relationship to identity, authorship and global visual culture.
SEE BEFORE THE END OF JUNE
Until Fri, Jun 5: Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts at Wits Art Museum presents Thoughtforms: The Page as a Liminal Field, tracing the book as a site of active thinking from 15th-century incunabula to contemporary experiments in redaction and annotation.
Until Sat, Jun 13 – Where Time Has Gathered is a special exhibition at Lizamore on Keyes. Drawn from gallerist and curator Teresa Lizamore's personal collection, the exhibition reflects on 35 years of relationships and moments in the art world.
SEE BEFORE THE END OF JULY
Until Fri, Jul 31 – A brand-new art space, A42 House opens its doors with Grounded, a co-created exhibition shaped by voices in Johannesburg reflecting on home, belonging and place. Keep an eye on A42 House's Instagram for talks, workshops and other pop-up events.
SEE BEFORE THE END OF OCTOBER
Until Sat, Oct 31: With the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) gearing up for its refurbishment, Homecoming brings significant pieces from its collection to Standard Bank Gallery. Curated by Khwezi Gule and Dr Same Mdluli, the show creates a fascinating friction between European classical masters and seminal African works. For more thoughts on Homecoming and Johannesburg Art Gallery, read our articles here and here.
Ongoing – NIROX Sculpture Park and the Villa-Legodi Centre for Sculpture place works by Edoardo Villa alongside other South African sculptors to explore the legacy of the artist with Villa+ the next generation.
Save the date
May 22 – May 24 – The exquisite Shepstone Gardens plays host to RMB Latitudes Art Fair with the theme Oasis for 2026, featuring a special international focus on contemporary Nigerian art in collaboration with Yenwa Gallery. Get your tickets here.
Sep 4 – Sep 6 – FNB Art Joburg, the longest-running art fair in Africa, transforms the Sandton Convention Centre with curated sections, large-scale installations and more.
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