Friends of Johannesburg Art Gallery

10/04/2026

Main Street Sundays turns Marshalltown into a car-free city playground this Sunday, with music, food, design and wellness. As you explore the street, stroll into the Standard Bank Art Gallery to see Homecoming — select JAG works returned to South Africa after two years abroad.

Free entry, registration required.
Time: 10am–5pm.

A new way to experience the city 💛

Johannesburg Inner City Partnership Johannesburg In Your Pocket City Guide City of Joburg Joburg Culture

Select works from the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection are back in South Africa after nearly two years touring abroad. Co-curated by Khwezi Gule and Dr. Same Mduli, the exhibition reflects on belonging, return, and the histories embedded in institutional collections.

The exhibition is open to the public at the Standard Bank Art Gallery, Marshalltown, with safe underground parking available for visitors.

📍 44 Frederick Street, Marshalltown, Johannesburg
🗓 17 March – 31 October 2026

Opening Times:
• Tues–Fri: 9am – 4pm
• Sat: 9am – 1pm
• Closed: Sundays & Public Holiday

27/03/2026

Select works from the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection are back in South Africa after nearly two years touring abroad. Co-curated by Khwezi Gule and Dr. Same Mduli, the exhibition reflects on belonging, return, and the histories embedded in institutional collections.

The exhibition is open to the public at the Standard Bank Art Gallery, Marshalltown, with safe underground parking available for visitors.

📍 44 Frederick Street, Marshalltown, Johannesburg
🗓 17 March – 31 October 2026

Opening Times:
• Tues–Fri: 9am – 4pm
• Sat: 9am – 1pm
• Closed: Sundays & Public Holiday

20/03/2026

19/03/2026

'Homecoming' at Standard Bank Gallery – The battle for memory, heritage, and the soul of the Johannesburg Art Gallery

Homecoming at Standard Bank Gallery in Marshalltown brings a selection of works from the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) collection back to public view after two years touring in South Korea. Opened on Sat, Mar 14, 2026 and running until Sat, Oct 31, 2026, the exhibition is intended to ensure continued access to the collection while JAG undergoes refurbishment. Co-curated by JAG Chief Curator Khwezi Gule and Standard Bank Gallery Curator Dr Same Mdluli, it brings together valuable works from the likes of Pablo Picasso, Maggie Laubser, Gladys Mgudlandlu, Paul Cézanne, Gerard Sekoto, William Kentridge, and many more prominent artists. A much-anticipated showing – with a preview for G20 delegates in November 2025 – the public opening of Homecoming was launched with addresses from Johannesburg's current (at the time of writing) Executive Mayor, Dada Morero, and the city's Director of Arts, Culture and Heritage, Vuyisile Mshudulu.

But beyond the official framing of a cultural “homecoming”, the exhibition raises more difficult questions – about memory, authorship, and the silences that shape how this story is being told, writes Johannesburg In Your Pocket founder Laurice Taitz.

Anyone who grew up in South Africa during the late apartheid years recognises the peculiar dissonance that occurs when official language drifts too far from lived reality. You find yourself standing in a room where people seem to politely accept the story being told, while another part of your mind quietly insists that the record is incomplete. For me, moments like this trigger an almost physical reaction – a memory of being told, as a child, that everything was fine when the evidence suggested otherwise.

That feeling returned this week.

But first, the exhibition. In many ways it's a gift. Standard Bank Gallery, which shut its doors last year, has now reopened and an exhibition of works from one of Africa’s most important public art collections can once again be seen, in a beautiful and accessible space. For that, the team behind this deserves genuine credit.

The works span decades and continents, opening up a dialogue between Europe and Africa. Among them are a portrait of Lady Florence Phillips by Antonio Mancini (1909), the driving force behind the establishment of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) in 1910. The gallery officially opened its doors in 1915 in a landmark building in Joubert Park. Phillips' aim was to establish a permanent cultural institution in a young, mining-driven city that she felt lacked "moral and cultural upliftment". On the richly painted walls at Standard Bank Gallery, the collection is astonishing, ranging from classical to contemporary. It's a treat to see works by Gerard Sekoto, George Pemba, Gladys Mgudlandlu, and William Kentridge arranged next to those of Francis Bacon, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Pablo Picasso, and Claude Monet. For an outsider it's a pure privilege, and one that belongs to the people of Johannesburg.
"It is difficult not to notice when memory is being gently rearranged."

But if you have followed the story, or rather the saga, of the Johannesburg Art Gallery over the past decade, the moment is impossible to view as simple homecoming, and one of cultural renewal. Listening to the official speeches I was conscious that the true custodians of this city are rarely the people who arrive at the podium once the crisis has passed.

Although in this case it has not been a single crisis, but a succession of them – many of which remain unresolved, including the fate of the full collection and its safe relocation. Read the latest on this by Anna Cox for Daily Maverick, published two days after the opening.

The JAG collection has survived years of uncertainty because people have cared enough to fight for it – among them an historic founder, artists, historians, activists, and ordinary residents who refused to let it quietly disappear from public view. If there is a homecoming to celebrate, it belongs to them too.

The JAG collection exists because it was entrusted to the City of Johannesburg for its people. It belongs, in the deepest sense, to the city. Yet for years the institution responsible for protecting it has allowed the building that houses it to slide into visible decay.

The gallery in Joubert Park has moved through successive stages of crisis: infrastructure failure, stalled restoration plans, confusion over budgets, and a persistent sense that responsibility was drifting. This has put the works at risk, and what is on show at Standard Bank Gallery is only around 150 pieces of a much greater collection that are now safely stored in museum conditions.

Throughout this period it has not been official leadership that kept the issue alive. Artists raised alarm. Historians spoke out. The Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) pushed for transparency. Civil society groups demanded answers. Friends of JAG and others refused to allow the conversation to fade.

Without that pressure it is entirely possible the collection might have quietly slipped further from the city’s attention.

Which is why the tone of the opening felt so strange. Because in the carefully choreographed language of the day, the years of contestation seemed to evaporate. The exhibition was framed as a triumphant return – a cultural homecoming – rather than the result of sustained struggle.
"And now we are asked to celebrate the dashing 'rescue' of the collection, as if it had wilfully wandered off on an overseas tour and, like an errant dandy, is being called home for family business. There is no way to truthfully frame this as a triumphant narrative."

It is difficult not to notice when memory is being gently rearranged. What struck me most, though, was not only what was said – but what was not. Because in this exhibition, the silences speak loudly. At the entrance, the curatorial voice is almost anonymous. There is no clear sense of who has shaped this selection, or how decisions have been made. The names – and with them, accountability – recede into the background.

More striking still is the absence of acknowledgement of the Friends of JAG and the JHF – both of which have played a sustained and public role in advocating for the protection of the gallery and its collection. They were not named, nor were the many individuals, curators, historians, and cultural workers who have spent years insisting that this collection matters.

And then there are the works themselves. Presented with remarkably little context. No stories. Sparse interpretation. My companion on the day, a veteran art historian, remarked that the commentary at points resembled something that one would use to challenge first-year students to "think" about what they are seeing.

You move from piece to piece without a clear sense of timeline, of acquisition, of controversy, of meaning. The (ironically) transparent labels used are mostly illegible and resemble fine print. The collection is presented as if it exists in a kind of historical vacuum – detached from the very conditions that shaped it. The result is a subtle but persistent dislocation.

A Picasso hangs on the wall – the same work that once sent shockwaves through Johannesburg in 1973, when its acquisition (funded by Friends of JAG) consumed the gallery’s entire annual budget and ignited public debate. Here, it appears without that history. Without the friction that made it matter. Nearby, a portrait of JAG's founder Lady Florence Phillips is given no particular emphasis. You would not know, unless you already did, that you are looking at the figure most responsible for the institution’s existence. Even the exhibition design gestures towards history without fully engaging it. The wall colours echo the interiors of the original gallery – once a bold and controversial decision – but that story, too, goes untold.

All the elements are here. But the connective tissue – the stories that would make the works legible, human, accessible – is largely absent.

Johannesburg is increasingly a city held together by three uneasy forces: civil society, corporate institutions, and government. When the state falters, citizens organise. When public institutions decay, corporates sometimes step in to stabilise what they can. These arrangements can work. In fragile cities they often have to. But they depend on honesty about how we arrived here.

What becomes corrosive is when those who failed to protect something step forward to narrate themselves as its rescuers – particularly in an election year, when long-running crises suddenly begin to produce convenient victories.
"It is not that the works are not welcome. It is that the story of how we arrived here that is far from settled. Johannesburg does not need another exercise in narrative polish. It needs honesty."

The week had offered an unexpected counterpoint. Only days earlier I had attended a special memorial sitting for a dear relative, Justice Lewis Goldblatt, at the High Court – a man who lived the law with ethics and integrity at its centre. The precinct surrounding the court is in a shocking state: broken, collapsed, and dispiriting in ways that make you wonder how people enter it every day without feeling their souls eroding. And yet inside the warren of court buildings something extraordinary persists.

There is dignity there. Respect for the law. A sense of responsibility carried quietly by the people who work within those rooms. Despite the decay around them, something important is still being held in trust.

The contrast with JAG could not be sharper. This absence matters because it points to something deeper than oversight. It suggests what happens when the people who have carried an institution through its most difficult years are not meaningfully included in shaping how it is presented. Because the ex*****on falters in precisely the places where lived knowledge would have made the difference – in context, in storytelling, in acknowledgement. In memory.

At JAG the crisis has been visible both inside and out – a building deteriorating physically while the institution itself seemed to drift without clear protection or direction. What should be a cherished cultural inheritance has increasingly felt like a casualty of wilful neglect. And more than that, a defiance of the idea of public good. Until today there is no public catalogue of the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection, despite the city's role as custodian. Nor is there a plan for restoration of precious works that have been damaged over the years. Sadly some of the works on display at Standard Bank Gallery – on a closer look – have been poorly retouched.

Even the title – Homecoming – sits uneasily. For many visitors, the works were never understood to have “left” in any meaningful public sense. They went walkabout in South Korea for many months before this became public knowledge. Their absence, like so much around the gallery, unfolded quietly and unevenly.

And now we are asked to celebrate the dashing "rescue" of the collection, as if it had wilfully wandered off on an overseas tour and, like an errant dandy, is being called home for family business. There is no way to truthfully frame this as a triumphant narrative.

It is not that the works are not welcome. It is that the story of how we arrived here that is far from settled. Johannesburg does not need another exercise in narrative polish. It needs honesty. Because the survival of the JAG collection was never guaranteed by the speeches of officials. It was secured by the persistence of those who refused to look away.

The true custodians of this city are the ones who refuse to let the story be forgotten. If this moment is to mean anything, it should not end at the gallery doors. It should extend into support for the organisations and individuals who have done the work of holding this institution in public consciousness – the JHF, the Friends of JAG, and others who continue to advocate for transparency, accountability, and care. There was no mention of them on the day.

It should also demand more from the exhibition itself. More context. More history. More acknowledgement of the people, the debates, and the decisions that shaped this collection. Because without that, the works risk becoming objects to be looked at – rather than stories to be understood.

When another member of our team visited on the day of the opening, the crowds had begun to thin and he began speaking to one of the security guards, asking what he thought of the exhibition, and whether he had a favourite. "He told me he wished there was more information – more writing alongside the works – because he didn’t know the artists or the stories behind them."

The distance became clear. Not between the past and the present. But between the collection and the people it is meant to belong to.

Perhaps that is the unresolved question at the centre of all this. We are trying to hold two reckonings at once: the longer history of the gallery – rooted in a colonial past – and the more recent struggle to prevent its collapse. The second has not yet been resolved. And until it is, the first cannot be fully confronted.

So the question lingers. Not only how we save the Johannesburg Art Gallery – but what, and who, are we saving it for.

Homecoming is at Standard Bank Gallery (44 Frederick St, Marshalltown) until Sat, Oct 31, 2026.

Support the work of Friends of JAG and Johannesburg Heritage Foundation
Become a member to support these vital organisations. Follow Friends of JAG and Johannesburg Heritage Foundation. Their work, as well as that of ordinary gallery staff at JAG, has helped ensure the gallery has stayed open over the past few years.

To keep up to date on the city's plans on the gallery's restoration follow the Instagram accounts of City of Joburg and Johannesburg Art Gallery, and make sure to show up for any community meetings that are held as part of this process.

Viewing 'Homecoming' at Standard Bank Gallery as simple cultural renewal obscures deeper contestations around Johannesburg Art Gallery's collection.

18/03/2026

18/03/2026

Joburg spends R23.6m relocating City’s most valuable art to location with security concerns
By Anna Cox | 16 Mar 2026

The City of Joburg has set aside R50-million to restore the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), yet R23.6-million – nearly half that allocation – is being committed, not to repairing the century-old Lutyens-designed building in Joubert Park, but to temporary relocation, before a single artwork has been moved – and while formal heritage approval for the transfer remains pending.

In a statement released earlier this month, the City said “significant progress has been made in readying Museum Africa and the Pink Building to temporarily house the Johannesburg Art Gallery collection,” adding that the work focused on creating “secure, climate-controlled and professionally managed environments” to safeguard the artworks during refurbishment. The City further stated that the readiness measures were being undertaken “as per the requirements of Sahra [South African Heritage Resources Agency].”

However, Friends of JAG, the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) and the Democratic Alliance have expressed grave concern about the suitability of the proposed relocation sites, arguing that the attic-level storage space at Museum Africa and the warehouse-style Pink Building do not meet international museum standards for climate stability, security and long-term conservation. They have also questioned whether sufficient environmental data, safety assurances and heritage approvals are in place before any relocation proceeds.

The relocation budget, disclosed to Daily Maverick by the City, includes R6.5-million for space planning and logistics and R17.1-million for upgrades at Museum Africa and the so-called Pink Building, a warehouse structure in Newtown adjacent to Museum Africa. Additional compliance works are under way at the Brixton Multipurpose Centre, although the City did not provide a separate figure for those upgrades.

The City has indicated that Museum Africa, the Pink Building and Brixton were identified as available municipal properties capable of being upgraded within existing timelines, allowing the collection to remain under City control during refurbishment.

‘Unfit for purpose’
Mayor Dada Morero’s R50-million announcement was widely reported – and welcomed by residents and art lovers – as a headline commitment to restoring one of Johannesburg’s most important cultural institutions.

Following an oversight inspection at Museum Africa, DA Gauteng spokesperson for Sport, Arts, Culture and Recreation, Leanne de Jager, described the upper-level storage area as “unfit for purpose, with critical flaws in security, climate control, unwanted water pe*******on and access”.

She characterised the move as “a reckless gamble with our cultural heritage” and called on the City to halt the relocation until the facilities comply with international standards.

Friends of JAG and the JHF agree, citing unsuitable conditions and safety risks, particularly in relation to the attic-level storage space at Museum Africa, after a group of experts visited the site in December.

“We have concerns about the conditions in the attic, especially safety, as it is close to the overhead freeway and there have been security problems in the past,” the groups said in a statement to Daily Maverick.

The two groups further argued that uninterrupted climate control is central to museum-grade storage, particularly in attic-level or warehouse-type spaces where temperature fluctuation and water ingress risks can be amplified.

The regulatory position also remains unresolved. Sahra confirmed that the relocation of the collection was still under review in terms of Section 9 of the National Heritage Resources Act.

Ben Mwasinga, Senior Manager: Heritage Compliance Management at Sahra, said the application for relocation following the October site visit is still “undergoing careful consideration”.

“Sahra did not inspect the Pink House or Brixton Recreation Centre,” Mwasinga confirmed.

He also confirmed that environmental commissioning data had not been submitted and was not required for the Section 9 review.

The City, however, says systems are being installed and tested before any relocation proceeds. Spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane said the HVAC system at Museum Africa had been fully commissioned and accredited by the South African Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors Association.

Environmental stability testing is still under way and monitoring logs are not yet available. Load shedding simulation testing has not been conducted. A gas-based fire suppression system has been installed, but formal certification from the City’s Fire Department remains pending.

On backup power, Modingoane said alternative sources were not a statutory requirement.

“Whilst alternative sources of power are not a statutory requirement for museums, the City has been engaging with its power utility on various options of alternative sources of power,” he said.

No alternative power system has yet been installed at the identified sites.

The City said engineers had assessed the buildings and continued monitoring conditions, particularly during the rainy season. It also acknowledged delays in completing the temporary facilities, stating that feedback from stakeholders had been incorporated into the works.

Contract for refurbishment and relocation
Beyond the relocation itself, concerns have also been raised about how the refurbishment tender was structured and awarded.

Friends of JAG, JHF and several art conservation professionals argue that a heritage-specific tender should have been issued for a Grade II listed building housing one of Africa’s most significant municipal collections.

Instead, the contract was awarded to Lamela Consulting through a multidisciplinary professional services panel.

“The refurbishment of the Johannesburg Art Gallery was not issued as a standalone heritage-specific tender. Instead, it was procured as a multidisciplinary professional services appointment to respond to the full complexity of the project,” Modingoane said.

According to the City, the evaluation covered 13 built-environment disciplines – including structural engineering, architecture, environmental systems, fire compliance, security and art conservation planning – with each discipline scored during the bid process.

Friends of JAG and JHF argue that placing heritage conservation as one component within a broader technical scoring matrix risks diluting its centrality in a restoration of this nature.

Lamela’s original consortium included a heritage academic, Professor Iain Clarke, based in the Netherlands, who later stepped down following public criticism of the project and his role within it. The City said his resignation was voluntary. Mayat Hart Architects & Heritage Consultants was subsequently appointed as the replacement heritage specialist.

Contractors preparing the temporary facilities – Ngutyana Construction for Museum Africa and the Pink Building, and Nkomaba Construction for Brixton – were appointed through competitive bidding in line with municipal supply chain regulations.

Asked whether contractors were required to demonstrate prior experience in constructing museum-grade art storage facilities, the City said there was no specific requirement within the Construction Industry Development Board framework mandating such experience. Instead, contractors were required to demonstrate appropriate general building grading.

Specialised storage systems, including art racking and conservation-aligned installations, are being delivered by appointed specialist providers working alongside the main contractors, said Modingoane.

Concerns over artworks on loan
Governance concerns have also been raised by Friends of JAG and JHF regarding loan procedures and institutional oversight, stating that clarity was required on whether all proper procedures and permissions were in place.

Previously, when questions were raised with the Art Gallery Committee about permissions relating to an unusually large loan to South Korea, it was suggested that the City had adopted a new loans policy overriding aspects of the Deed of Donation. JHF and Friends of JAG now question whether the Art Gallery Committee was properly constituted at the time approvals were granted and whether all governance requirements were met.

However, the City confirmed that 145 artworks were loaned to institutions in South Korea with approval from the City, the Art Gallery Committee and Sahra.

Officials from the City said no artworks were damaged during the loan period, though two paintings were affected during the return process after being held at an airport under unsuitable climate conditions. A conservation plan is under way, according to the City.

At a media preview during the G20, at least one of the 30 artworks displayed appeared visibly damaged, claim the two NGOs, though the City maintains that no permanent damage occurred as a result of the loan.

Regarding the Deed of Donation of the artworks by Lady Florence Phillips, the City said it remained operative and that loan approvals continued to follow the required governance framework, with domestic loans approved by the City and the Art Gallery Committee, and international loans additionally requiring Sahra approval.

Some of JAG’s most valuable pieces have found safe haven at other galleries. The artworks that were loaned to institutions in South Korea are on display at the Standard Bank Gallery. Another important part of the JAG collection will soon be exhibited at the Javett Art Centre at the University of Pretoria.

But for now, nearly half the value of the JAG’s headline refurbishment allocation has been committed to interim infrastructure. Heritage approval for relocation is still pending. Environmental monitoring data is not yet available. Backup power has not been installed. The majority of the collection – more than 9,000 works spanning over a century – remains in a building awaiting restoration while its temporary homes are still being prepared.

Amid the debate over costs, questions have also been raised about whether private sector funding was available as an alternative to the City-funded relocation.

JoziMyJozi suggested that private business had offered to assist with relocation costs. However, no formal funding commitment has been publicly documented, and the City has not indicated that any privately financed alternative relocation proposal was formally tabled or accepted. DM

Mayor Dada Morero’s commitment to spending R50m on restoring the Johannesburg Art Gallery was welcomed by residents and art lovers. Almost half, however, will be spent on preparing to relocate the art…

17/03/2026

The Johannesburg Art Gallery Collection returns home after a landmark international tour. HOMECOMING reflects on belonging, return, and the transformation of cultural memory - reimagining a once‑exclusive collection as a space for dialogue, recognition, and renewal. Featuring celebrated international works alongside powerful South African voices, the exhibition invites audiences to engage with the city’s layered history and evolving identity. On show in its temporary home until 31 October 2026.

Standard Bank Galllery
44 Frederick Street, Marshalltown, Johannesburg

Opening Times:
• Tues–Fri: 9am – 4pm
• Sat: 9am – 1pm
• Closed: Sundays & Public Holiday

17/03/2026

Homecoming is now open to the public at the Standard Bank Art Gallery 🎨
From 17 March to 31 October 2026, discover 145 works from the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), returning to the city after an international tour across Europe and Asia 🌍

Co-curated by Khwezi Gule and Dr Same Mdluli, the exhibition brings together South African and European works, including pieces from JAG’s French collection.
Supported by the Embassy of France and IFAS, this project contributes to the renewed visibility and future of one of Africa’s major public art collections.
Entrance is free.

Standard Bank Gallery
44 Frederick Street, Marshalltown, Johannesburg

Opening Times:
• Tues–Fri: 9am – 4pm
• Sat: 9am – 1pm
• Closed: Sundays & Public Holiday

26/02/2026

As Johannesburg approaches its 140th anniversary in 2026, what does it say about our city that the landmark Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) stands in such visible decline? Founded in 1915, JAG was once a proud civic institution — an architectural landmark and a declaration that this young mining town believed culture mattered. Today, it tells a different story.

Years of deferred maintenance, stalled repair efforts, whispers of deep corruption, and institutional drift have left the building in a state of disrepair that is a monument to how those entrusted with safeguarding the inner city allowed it to erode. Now, after years of institutional neglect and what often has felt like a quiet abdication of responsibility to the very residents left to endure the decline, the same officials appear to position themselves as the heroes of its repair.

The official restoration plans announced in 2025 (in a haze of G20 bravado) were met with relief — but it felt more like the relief of exhaustion rather than confidence. In the backstory – in 2024, legal action was initiated by the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation (JHF) and the Friends of JAG (FOJ) moving the matter beyond internal concern. JAG like the the Johannesburg Public Library has become a site of civic reckoning.

For those who have worked quietly and persistently behind the scenes to secure a future for JAG, the announcement however did signal possibility, that at least on paper, JAG’s official decline could no longer be normalised.

Whether that moment proves to be a genuine turning point — or simply another entry in a long ledger of stalled interventions — now depends on what follows.

Joburg has heard bold promises before. Announcements are not outcomes. And in a city where ambitious plans too often stall between press conference and implementation, the path forward remains fragile — contingent not on vision alone, but on whether this time, follow-through matches rhetoric.

What is at stake is not only the preservation of a historic building. JAG symbolises something larger: access to art, cultural investment, and the kind of city Johannesburg chooses to be. In a metropolis still negotiating the legacies of inequality, neglecting its foremost public gallery is not a neutral act — it reinforces the very divides we claim are urgent to confront.

Perhaps most telling, in our work across the city over the past 12 years, we have repeatedly heard the same refrain: “My first encounter with art was at JAG.” For many, it was a school outing — a bus ride into the city, a quiet moment standing in front of a painting that felt unexpectedly personal. For others, it was an after-school refuge while waiting for transport home, wandering the galleries in the late afternoon. Some remember being taken there by parents or grandparents, the visit carrying the quiet weight of inheritance — culture passed from one generation to the next. These are not abstract policy outcomes. They are formative experiences.
Long before art fairs, private galleries, and curated districts reshaped the cultural map of Johannesburg, JAG was where thousands first understood that art was not distant or elite — it was public, accessible, and theirs. That memory — of access, of possibility, of belonging — is perhaps the gallery’s most powerful legacy. And it is precisely what stands to be lost if restoration is treated as a construction project rather than a civic responsibility.

Projects of this scale are complex, but complexity can never be an excuse for inertia. JAG’s future will depend on sustained cooperation and accountability between the City of Johannesburg (COJ) — whose reliability as a civic partner has too often been brought into question — and the broader community of artists, patrons, funders, and citizens who understand the gallery’s value, and have a right to sit at the table to determine its future.

In our view, restoration is the baseline, the bare minimum. If JAG is to become a grounding force again — and a beacon for the future of art in Johannesburg — it will require more than repairs. It will require leadership, transparency, and like all creative acts, imagination. And, most urgently, follow-through.

Why JAG is significant in southern Africa
Reported to house more than 9,000 artworks, the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG) collection — much of it unseen for years, and some of it reportedly having toured Asia while the building itself faltered — is widely regarded as the largest public art collection in sub-Saharan Africa. It spans historic African art, European works from the 14th to the 20th centuries, and a significant body of modern and contemporary South African art. Scale alone, however, does not guarantee relevance.

As major galleries and commercial art spaces have migrated northwards with capital and development, JAG has remained anchored on the edge of Hillbrow, in the inner city. Its location is not incidental. It places the gallery at the fault line of Johannesburg’s ongoing debates about access, power, urban neglect, and who cultural institutions are ultimately for. Few public buildings in the city sit so squarely at the intersection of art and belonging. And yet its symbolic weight stands in stark contrast to its material reality.

Despite sustained curatorial efforts over the years to redress historical exclusions and reframe the collection, public discourse around JAG has increasingly centred not on its intellectual ambition, but on decay. Failed repair attempts. Damage to parts of the collection and archive. Falling visitor numbers. Administrative instability. The narrative has shifted from stewardship to crisis.

The city deserves more than patched ceilings and repaired facades. It deserves institutions that function. It deserves custodians who understand stewardship as a long-term obligation, not a press opportunity. It deserves transparency, competence, and follow-through. We deserve public spaces that are safe, open, and genuinely accessible — not only geographically, but psychologically. Spaces where a child, or adult, from Hillbrow, Yeoville, Soweto, or Rosebank can encounter beauty without feeling out of place.

We deserve cultural institutions that reflect the full story of Johannesburg — its fractures and its brilliance — and that actively work to expand who feels entitled to enter them.

Separate histories

Bordering high-rise Hillbrow, the city's first high-density residential district, the Johannesburg Art Gallery and Joubert Park – the oldest and most central public park in Joburg – were originally conceived as elite leisure spaces for white South Africans. Both formed part of a broader mission to reshape Johannesburg from a mining town into a city in its own right. Art, of course, has always been entangled with the colonial project. As cultural worker Thulile Gamedza noted in her response to critiques of the 2025 FNB Art Joburg art fair, questions of race, power, and who holds the resources to shape the art world remain unresolved.

JAG’s history as Johannesburg’s premier gallery, combined with its position in Hillbrow – an area that has undergone some of the city’s most profound social shifts since Apartheid and is now largely home to black working-class residents – places it in a uniquely charged position. It sits between worlds that have long remained separate, with many seeing the gallery as holding the potential to bridge the often siloed art sphere and the lived realities of the city around it.

Like many of Johannesburg’s historic institutions, JAG is inextricably linked with the legacies of colonialism and extraction. Lady Florence Phillips, wife of mining magnate Sir Lionel Phillips, drove the creation of the gallery, and in 1915, the building designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens was completed. The structure reflected the aspirations of the newly formed Union: to embed itself within European imperial and modernist traditions. Unsurprisingly, the early collection was dominated by European works from the 18th to the 20th centuries.

The gallery’s detachment from its immediate context was evident even in its original south-facing design. Aside from the notable acquisition of Yellow Houses by artist Gerard Sekoto in 1940, JAG largely remained a space of segregation and exclusion until the end of Apartheid.

From then, the collection and programming shifted considerably, with conscious efforts to redress historical imbalances. Historic African works, once framed as ethnographic artefacts, were increasingly recognised as artworks deserving of the same research and curatorial care as European traditions – a transition reflected in powerful exhibitions such as Art and Ambiguity (1991). Other shows, including The Neglected Tradition (1988), which documented the history of black South African artists, and the ground-breaking Africa Remix (2007), further signalled the gallery’s departure from its earlier role as a repository for colonial imaginations.

The late 1990s and into the 2000s saw a number of landmark exhibitions and exciting cultural interventions at the gallery. During that time Clive Kellner served as Director of the Johannesburg Art Gallery (1999 to 2008). Under his tenure the strong curatorial focus and efforts to reposition the gallery within post-apartheid South Africa’s shifting cultural landscape included attempts to make the institution more globally connected and locally responsive. What the gallery lacked in budget during those years, it made up for in cultural weight — and in an openness to fresh ideas, experimentation, and collaboration. There was an energy that belied the constraints: a sense that intellectual ambition could compensate, at least partially, for financial limitation.

Of course, the period leading up to 2010 — and the years immediately after — was marked by an intense optimism about what Johannesburg might become. As the city prepared to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, investment flowed into infrastructure, public space upgrades, transport systems, and inner-city renewal. There was a palpable sense that Johannesburg stood on the cusp of reinvention — that it could recast itself on a global stage, confident and forward-looking. The World Cup moment fuelled belief and created momentum. It suggested that coordinated political will, private capital, and civic ambition could align.

In that climate, the future felt expansive. Institutions like JAG were imagined not as relics to be stabilised, but as cultural anchors in a city on the rise.

On another note, today, Clive Kellner leads the Joburg Contemporary Art Foundation (JCAF), a privately funded initiative that has quickly positioned itself as one of the city’s most rigorous contemporary art platforms — commissioning research-driven exhibitions, supporting scholarship, and operating with a level of institutional stability that public museums in South Africa have increasingly struggled to sustain. The contrast is difficult to ignore: one institution buoyed by private funding and strategic clarity, the other still fighting for structural reliability. In Joburg the lines have long blurred between who is accountable for what in the public and private realm.

Deterioration, decay, and mismanagement

Despite all of this Johannesburg Art Gallery still inspires awe. Its opulent halls and towering pillars retain their grandeur – but the signs of deterioration are impossible to ignore: cracking walls, holes in the roof, and damaged parquet flooring.

Since the 2010s, the gallery has struggled visibly. The JHF notes that JAG receives roughly 5,000 visitors per year – a stark contrast to the 189,000 visitors recorded by Cape Town's Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in 2023. Perceptions of the surrounding area undoubtedly play a role, with concerns about safety continuing to deter many would-be visitors. Yet the decline is also materially driven: damage to the roof and flooring has significantly reduced the amount of space that is open to the public.

Many of the gallery’s structural complications can be traced back to the Meyer Pienaar extensions of the 1980s, where the additions were poorly integrated with the original building. Over time, neglect and insufficient maintenance compounded these issues. Flooding and mould became recurring problems, forcing the gallery to close temporarily in 2017. The situation deteriorated further after a widely criticised repair job in 2021, which left large sections of the gallery inaccessible and allowed water leaks to damage parts of the collection and archive. (For detailed accounts of JAG's condition, see Ferial Haffajee's 2024 Daily Maverick article and reporting by Mariapaola McGurk and Natanya Meyer for Mail & Guardian.)

Taken together, these failures have reshaped how the institution is viewed, putting JAG's role and relevance within Johannesburg’s cultural landscape into question.

Restoration plans

This is what the City seeks to address through its restoration programme. The process began in early 2025 under the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA), with approvals from the Provincial Heritage Resources Authority of Gauteng in November 2025. Central to the work is repairing and waterproofing the roof of the Meyer Pienaar extensions, alongside long-overdue upgrades to the gallery’s electrical, fire safety, and water management systems. The project invites comparison with other major civic restorations such as the Johannesburg City Library – a benchmark to watch closely.

Early developments have been encouraging, notably Mayat Hart Architects and Heritage Consultants being brought on as sub-contractors to Lamela Consulting. Yet the project has not been without controversy, with art writer Heidi Sincuba's piece on the Gallery from April 2025 highlighting the lack of transparency in the initial contracting and consulting period.

Recent objections have centred on the planned relocation of JAG’s collection during construction. The JHF, FOJ, and the Democratic Alliance have all raised concerns about the feasibility of the proposed timeline and the City’s decision to use Museum Africa in Newtown as a temporary storage site.

For the JHF and FOJ – two civic bodies long involved in advocating for the gallery – the dispute has been compounded by what they describe as insufficient engagement, as requests for consultation have repeatedly gone unanswered.

In a statement from February 2026, the City has committed to ensuring Museum Africa is fit for purpose and compliant with international museum standards. Pre-relocation upgrades are said to include "state-of-the-art climate and humidity control and advanced security features". The City further justifies its use of state-owned facilities on insurance and legislative grounds, arguing that the upgrades will deliver value beyond the temporary relocation.

There's no doubt that proper storage of JAG’s collection is imperative. But while the City should steer this process, stakeholder confidence will depend increasingly on transparency and consultation. Formal approval from the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) and JAG’s Art Gallery Committee will be critical to maintaining democratic oversight.

These tensions are emblematic of wider distrust between the public and private sectors in South Africa. Yet, if the restoration is to succeed, co-operation will be essential. Leadership in this context cannot come at the expense of rigorous debate – a point FOJ emphasise in arguing that only a genuinely multi-stakeholder partnership can secure the gallery’s long-term future.
Reimagining the Johannesburg Art Gallery

For the Friends of JAG, the key is not just restoring the gallery, but answering a larger question: "What role can an art collection play in unlocking the potential of the cultural and creative industries for current and future generations of citizens of the city?"
Glimpses of this possibility can be found in JAG’s recent history, in its efforts to redress the gallery’s past, and in the work of institutions long excluded from it under Apartheid. The task of reimagining, however, is bound up in the tensions between what should be preserved and what should change. These surface clearly in Thembeka Heidi Sincuba’s article, In the Shadow of the Gallery, which looks at JAG and its potential future as a struggle for the identity of Joburg – one that could either reproduce the past or, as JAG curator Khwezi Gule says, "[construct] something that truly reflects and serves the people who’ve always been left behind”. If only that carried the insitutional weight it deserves.

An early example of this thinking was the Joubert Park Public Art Project of the early 2000s, which attempted to bridge the disconnect between JAG and its immediate surroundings. The initiative sought to "turn the gallery inside out", using performances, workshops, and exhibitions that extended into the park and actively engaged the surrounding community. While short lived, it pointed towards the sort of approach needed to position JAG not as a static repository of the past, but as an active force in the making of art and history.

Institutions such as the Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA), the Thupelo Art Workshops, Mofolo Art Centre, and the Johannesburg Art Foundation offer alternative visions of the role of art outside the gallery. Central to these initiatives was an understanding of art as social infrastructure – something that connects communities, nurtures artists, and embeds creative practice within everyday life.

Those involved in JAG’s restoration are aware of these possibilities. In One Hundred Years of Collecting: The Johannesburg Art Gallery, released to mark the centenary of the Johannesburg Art Collection, contributors reflect on the institution’s past while envisioning a future that moves beyond the constraints of its colonial architecture and history. They picture JAG’s role shifting from a custodial space to an active participant in civic life. The argument is compelling: in present-day Johannesburg, the city’s primary gallery should not be a storehouse of relics, but a steward of vital, evolving heritage.

The restoration of the Johannesburg Art Gallery is essential, and it is encouraging to see the process finally under way. But restoration is only the baseline. JAG’s history demands something deeper: a reckoning with what the gallery is for — and for whom it exists.

The debates and tensions surrounding the current process are not distractions; they are the work. They surface the unresolved questions about access, ownership, power, and representation that have shadowed the institution since its founding. Avoiding those conversations in the name of expediency would only entrench the very divides the gallery now has an opportunity to confront.

If the City can hold that space open — not defensively, but with genuine accountability — and if all stakeholders can move toward a shared, future-facing vision, JAG could yet become a public institution that not only faces the city honestly, but actively serves the communities it was once designed to exclude.

That would be restoration in its fullest sense not simply of a building, but of purpose.

https://www.inyourpocket.com/johannesburg/a-gallery-for-all-reimagining-the-johannesburg-art_81016f


Johannesburg In Your Pocket City Guide

Restoration is the first step, but for JAG to become a grounding force in the city, reimagination is needed.