Past Exhibitions

NEWWORK23

 24 November 2023 - 10 February 2024

The Department of Fine Arts invites you to Newwork23 Graduate Exhibition 23 November 2023 @ 18:00 Wits Art Museum, The Point of Order & Art House Studios (Braamfontein, Johannesburg).

The Wits School of Arts, Fine Arts Department presents NEWWORK23, an exhibition of work by young artists in fulfilment of a BA Fine Art degree. It features 48 artists who work in a diverse range of media: performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, multimedia installation and interactive events. As the culmination of a four year process of learning, exchange, and experimentation, NEWWORK23 is an important indicator of emerging possibilities within the contemporary (South) African arts industries.

The class of 2023, as any graduating class, fearlessly makes themselves vulnerable as they sift through the debris of the last century to assemble provocations in crafting the next.

NEWWORK23 artist postcards and totes will be available for purchase at the opening event. All money raised will go towards NEWWORK24, in an ongoing culture of sharing self-raised funds from one year to the next.

Exhibited in Gallery 1.

Special Viewing: Marlene Dumas

27 February - 9 March 2024

Wits Art Museum is delighted to present for public viewing the recent donation by world-renowned South African artist Marlene Dumas (b1953) of her "Portrait of the poet Elisabeth Eybers".

Included in the exhibition is a short purpose-made documentary film featuring Marlene Dumas and Ena Jansen (b1951), the internationally recognised expert on Elisabeth Eybers, in which they discuss this painting along with the poetry of Elisabeth Eybers.  The engaging and iunsightful film includes footage of an interview with the poet herself.

Elisabeth Eybers (1915-2007) is an iconic South African-born poet, the first woman to publish in Afrikaans, and a Wits graduate. She won multiple awards both in SA and the Netherlands, where she moved in 1961 and continued to publish in Afrikaans.

Exhibited in Gallery 1.

Threading Through the Collections

 30 January - 11 May 2024

The exhibition journeys through the collections to portray the richness of Wits Art Museum’s textiles holdings. The works, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, span a wide geographic region and time-period. From raffia fibre to beaten-bark cloth, strip-woven to cut-pile cloth, tapestries, embroideries and appliques to indigo- and mud-dye fabrics, this exhibition explores the wide variety of textiles from Africa.

Narrative threads and common themes are woven together to communicate the significance of textiles within the continent. In many countries in Africa, textiles are used to express identity and mark significant occasions. Textiles and cloth are one of the early commodities that Africa traded globally.

The ways in which the textiles are made challenge Western gendered labour lines. The advanced skills and technology seen in the textiles likewise challenge the negative stereotypes about the continent.

In juxtaposing textiles with a wide-range of designs, styles, weaving processes and practices, the exhibition proposed new relationships between the textile works within the collection. To engage carefully with the artworks on this exhibition is a means to understand the diverse textile heritage within the continent; a heritage that continues to influence global art, design and fashion industries today.

Exhibited in Street-, Gertrude Posel, Mezzanine - and Strip Gallery 

Faces, Spaces, and Tenuous Places

13 February - 10 May 2024

Faces, Spaces and tenuous Places explores portraits of people and portrayals of place and space. The book artists use the structure and materiality of the book and carefully composed and manipulated images to reveal not only the state of person or place, but also the artists’ personal appreciation of and attitude to their theme. In all of the works, the role of colour and technique is key - holding power and affecting our moods and emotions. Crowded and empty spaces, proportion, and the density and clarity of image and text also become creative devices to signal the artists’ intent.
 
This exhibition reinforces the critical role of image manipulation and the choice of book art materials and techniques in evoking emotion. 

Exhibited at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Bettina Malcomess: Sentimental Agents

27 March - 29 June 2024

Sentimental Agents is a series of moving image works embodying the entanglements of cinema within the nervous system of empire, an immersive information field of signals, light, sound and transmission. The film cycle was shot in various locations in varied formats, tracking the journey of the sentimental agent, a technician of minor histories trying to tell the story of cinema's place in the South African War, but who suffers from the neurological disorder of narcolepsy. We travel with the agent to battlefields, memorials, unmarked graves, museums and archives, as well as colonial cinema palaces from the 1930s in Johannesburg and in Accra, Ghana. The films continuously gesture to an absence that they cannot fully articulate: the spectral presence of those figures that haunt the South African War archive, such as Solomon T. Plaatje. The work does not recycle archival footage nor historical images of the War's biopolitical violence. The cinematic language instead embodies a specifically colonial operationalisation of the nervous system by empire, one which violently marks, damages and marginalises black, feminine, queer, animal and nervous bodies. A registering of the re-inscription of historical representation on the celluloid substrate. Gaps, omissions, partial shadows, leakages of light.
 
The films form part of a PhD in Film Studies at Kings College London, the result of 7 years of archival and field research. The exhibition at Wits Art Museum includes objects, drawings, prints and expanded cinema works.

Exhibited in Gallery 1.

Karel Nel: Close and Far

Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith

30 May - 7 August 2024

Close and Far is a survey exhibition of Karel Nel’s work curated in relation to themes present in four works by this artist in WAM’s permanent collection. Nel’s wide-ranging interests and lifelong engagement over four decades with the role of thought and consciousness in our interpretation of the world – and the universe – are explored.

The earliest of the works from the early 1980s are mind’s eye drawings that map mental states. Nel’s exhibition alternates between the highly abstract and the carefully observed world around him. Whether he renders intimate narrative still lives, his studio, a lecture theatre at the Centre for Astrophysics in Paris, or the formal sand and rock garden at the Ryōan-ji temple in Japan, his concern is not simply optical fidelity but how we find ways to make sense for ourselves of the multiple realities about us.

Another stream is his set of dust ‘landscapes’, which use forensic materials to evoke, remember and commemorate critical moments in human thought and history. These works include Monument and Eleven, two works that – in the very dust that constitutes them – encourage us to acutely remember the terror and loss of 9/11.

Nel’s longstanding relationship with the Cosmic Evolutionary Survey (COSMOS) team of astrophysicists is reflected in his highly abstract works that represent his efforts to understand the complexity of human thought as our species grapples with the immensity of our universe. His artistic enquiry into the ideas, insights, images and raw data the astronomers use to explore a two-degree square of space below the constellation of Leo are examples of his most recent work.

The exhibition is accompanied by objects selected from Nel’s extensive collection of African and Oceanic art. 

Exhibited in the Street, Gertrude Posel Core, Mezzanine and Strip Gallery. 
 

working title

Fouad Asfour

16 July - 7 September 2024

The installation working title invites visitors to experience writing processes from unexpected perspectives. It is the final installment of Asfour’s practice-based 'creative arts' PhD research project “Un-drawing the Line through Spectrography. Exploring trans-lingual aspects through visual writing”. Visitors are invited to engage in experiences that are located outside of habituated language use by activating spaces of seeing, writing, drawing and doing they carry within themselves. By opening spaces for play and delight, the installation dislocates artworks from their surface and encodes them in glyphs and visual metaphors. Instead of focussing on “making sense”, the installation activates senses towards shared experiences. Thus, it aims to shift conditions of migration, exile or diaspora from the individual towards collective, translingual experiences where multiple identifications can create spaces between the readable and unreadable as “uncommon estrangements” (Sara Ahmed).

Exhibited in Gallery 1.

lo-fi street cred: artists’ zines, DIY and alternative publications

CURATED BY DAVID PATON

4 June - 13 August 2024

From important literary magazines dating from the ‘50s to posterzines by students and members of the public; artists’ publications from the JGCBA collection and zines sourced from diverse sources, the exhibition offers a sliver of alternative publications in South Africa. What is clear from this body of work is the rich history and nurturing of these fascinating practices.

Exhibited in Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts.

Clive van den Berg: Porous 

27 August - 26 October

Porous is a survey exhibition of Clive van den Berg's work. His artistic practice is centered around two main themes, land and love. The surface of land and the surface of skin have occupied many artists, so much so that landscape and figurative painting are core terms in our lexicon. What makes van den Berg’s practice distinct is his interest in the porous - porous skin and porous land.

Exhibited in the Street, Gertrude Posel Core, Mezzanine and Strip Gallery. 

Stephen Hobbs: 'Man Shouting in Distance'

17 September - 23 November 2024

Hobbs’ art school years took place at The Wedge on Yale Road (now the Origins Centre), former home to the Metallurgy, and Fine Art Departments and an animal laboratory. Rumours abounded about the basement studio spaces being dumping grounds for radioactive waste and that students lost their minds working down there. Indeed by Hobbs’ fourth year midterm exams he suffered a nervous breakdown and burst a blood vessel in his head. Art psychosis aside, there was something about the spatial atmosphere of that studio, the sense that what existed between my body and the walls was palpable, tangible. And from painting in third year he instinctively gravitated towards the studio in a site-specific way: The concrete and brick hardness of the space called me to respond in a phenomenological way, constantly exploring the intersections of positive and negative space with a variety of experimental objects and tectonic moves. 30 years on, this tendency has remained, be it in the corridors and buildings of Johannesburg, World War I and World War II theatres of war, myriad hospital interiors, and construction sites. To this end city planning, structural engineering, orthopaedic surgery, artistic deception in the battlefield and contingent building technologies have provided lenses for an artmaking practice concerned with visual and material equivalents for defensiveness, congestion, precarity, entropy, and death. These concepts are explored through video, printmaking, bookmaking, assemblage and sculpture.

Exhibited in Gallery 1.

Leporello

25 September - 13 December 

The term Leporello refers to any printed material folded into an accordion-pleat, sometimes referred to as a concertina fold. Ancient accordion-folded books have been found in many parts of Asia. In the Victorian era, leporellos were commonly used as travel souvenirs, depicting panoramic landscape scenes of the places travelers had just seen. Today, many leporellos are an account of incidents or events – sometimes as extensive narratives which can be printed on both sides of the folded medium.

Exhibited in Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts.

NEWWORK22

1 December 2022 - 18 February 2023

The NEWWORK project is an annual showcase that is produced by the graduating BAFA class. It is an opportunity for the group to debut themselves as the next generation of artists. Having previously had a presence online, the exhibition will be publicly launched at Wits Art Museum, The Point of Order and Arthouse Studios.

NEWWORK22 features 35 artists that work in a diverse range of media: performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, multimedia installation and interactive events. NEWWORK is fresh, critical and experimental. Exhibited in Gallery 1.

WAMkelekile - Unmasked 2020 - 2022

15 December 2022 - 11 March 2023

During much of the pandemic, Wits Art Museum along with other museums and galleries, was closed to the public. There was however still a lot of activity behind the scenes. The African art collection continued to grow and, now that the museum is again able to welcome visitors, this exhibition is an opportunity to present some of the artworks that were obtained over the last three years. 

'WAMkelekile', which means "you are welcome" in isiXhosa, is an exhibition that showcases some of the artworks that WAM collected over the past three years during the pandemic when the museum was closed to the public. On display are both contemporary and historical artworks from Africa made from a wide variety of materials. Exhibited in the Street-, Gertrude Posel Core- and Mezzanine Galleries

Mail Art/ists Books

9 February - 26 April 2023

This exhibition showcases the mail artworks of Cheryl Penn, those from
Kim Lieberman’s practice, the quirky ‘mail’ of Walter Battiss and his imaginary Fook Island, and a selection by international and local artists. The exhibition is curated by Wilhelm van Rensburg.

Mail art – also known as postal art and communication art – is defined as any form of art sent through a postal system. Initiated in the early 1940s by Ray Johnson, this medium was eagerly embraced by Fluxus artists in the late 1960s, subsequently becoming a worldwide network. Many artists embraced its possibilities in projects and exhibitions in the 1980s and 90s. Recently, under the worldwide Covid lockdown, artists have rediscovered its communicative strength. Exhibited at Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Caroline Suzman: I Declare I Am Here

9 March - 13 May 2023

In this series photographer Caroline Suzman reflects on Johannesburg as a city of shadows and dreams. Pedestrians streaming in and out of the so-called City of Gold navigate architecture from a bygone era with resilience, grit and grace. 

The photographs record fleeting interactions between the photographer, the inhabitants and the city environment; peeling walls, poster-covered concrete pillars and flyovers, littered pavements and potholed streets. Combinations of traditional dress and street fashion reflect the hybrid identities and personal creativity of passers-by. In seeking out unexpected matches between the streets and the people who pass along them, Suzman’s intention was to transmit a sense of the vitality and radical changeability of Johannesburg. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Natasha Christopher: Amaryllis

30 May - 15 July 2023

This body of work is a distillation of years of photographing gardens and plants in and around Johannesburg. The exhibition is part of the submission for my creative Ph.D., which looks at the ways in which green infrastructures reveal and conceal the legacies of apartheid. The exhibition engages with the affective experience of making and experiencing gardens, and plants.

My process is about close observation and making sense of things through the acts of photographing and drawing. The process of intimate looking through the camera viewfinder with the mechanical lens moves me to explore the same forms through autographic processes. The drawings function for me as a process of working with the frustration of not being able to draw the flower as precisely as I see it through the mechanical lens, and to feel the plant through this disconnect between sight, understanding form, and mark-making. In photography, I wish to find the feeling of the plant, through the sharpness of the lens, rather than describe it accurately. The work and process become – in the making of it and later the viewing of it – about the relationship between seeing, thinking, and feeling, and the constant shifting between these states. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Encounters with the (Im)material: Curated by Prof. Alison Kearney

4 April - 29 July 2023

Artworks are the material expression of artists’ ideas. Traces of the way artworks are created is one way the relationship between the artist and their thoughts is made visible. Curators propose ways of interpreting artworks by creating relationships between them in exhibition spaces. Audiences come to their own interpretations of art by engaging with the meanings that artworks hold for them, as well as the ideas presented through the curators’ arrangement. By embodying meanings about the imaginary, social and spiritual worlds, artworks collapse notions of the material with the immaterial.

This exhibition explores the ways in which the material and immaterial are connected in the museum through the interrelations between artworks, artists, curators, audiences and ideas. Artworks from the Wits Art Museum holdings that explore matter, spirituality, agency, and music are included in order to pose questions about what art is, and how we might understand the relationship between the seen, the invisible, and the audible. The audiences’ role in making meanings from their encounters with artwork is foregrounded in this exhibition. Exhibited in the Street, Gertrude Posel Core- and Mezzanine Galleries

Beyond Words

20 June - 11 August 2023

Artists’ books are generally associated with words and texts enriched with images to illustrate or reinforce an idea. However, some artists use only text, characters and typographic devices to communicate their message. Included in the exhibition are examples of concrete poetry; poetry that uses typography to give precise direction on how it is to be read aloud; seminal Futurist typography books; books that show excellent examples of hand lettering and printmaking techniques, and many other books that explore typographic and textual conventions.

Beyond Words challenges the viewer to read into and find purpose in the book artists’ choice of typographical devices. Exhibited at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Nicola Genovese: SAD BOY

01 August - 30 September 2023

Genovese is garnering a reputation for an artistic vocabulary which presents a set of innovative conceptual and material propositions in response to a key question of our age, which might be only partly ironically formulated as: Who do men think they are?

The Italian/Swiss artist’s body of work for this academic exhibition comprises sculptural works, ‘sculptural activations’ and performance, including an animated video piece, to ‘engender and embody new perspectives on the male body and performed masculinities’. In his own exhibition statement Genovese makes it clear that his aesthetic approach is designed to invoke ‘ambivalence, parody and the aesthetic category of the grotesque’. Exhibited in Gallery 1

 Thonton Kabeya: Introspect

15 August - 14 October 2023

If we could travel into our deepest human nature, what would we find? People are like mighty trees - made from layer upon layer, year after year, of life’s experiences - of pain, joy, memories and so many chapters wrapped around our soul and entire being. If we could go back and explore every layer and every chapter, we would discover richness beyond that of the material world. As a tree grows stronger and bigger, every layer of our life’s journey brings us to a new part of ourselves; we arrive stronger, wiser and richer. The more chapters, the deeper the wisdom. As my own soul tree continues to grow and evolve, a new chapter has begun in my artistic development. A new art form is emerging from my hands - one combining painting and sculpture in a super relief format. Through my work, I am searching for understanding and the answers to life's conundrums and, of course, exploring the layers. I was born and grew up in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Baluba tribe. The Luba people are famed for a rich culture of art and design - notably unique crafted drums and patterned cloth pieces known as Raffia. As one of 23 siblings in a peaceful polygamist environment, my family has shaped me in so many ways.

After travelling both internationally and across Africa as an artist, I settled in South Africa. It is here, on the tip of the continent, that l developed a signature artistic language that I have named SCULPTING CANVAS. This exhibition is not a celebration of past achievements. Rather, it is an introspection of my 10 years in South Africa. I'm looking forward to my next chapter...

Thonton Kabeya

Exhibited in the Street-, Gertrude Posel Core- and Mezzanine Galleries

 Masabelaneni: The Book Arts Archive of The Caversham Press and Centre for
Artists and Writers

Curated by Prof. David Paton and Dr. Marion Arnold

6 September - 15 December 2023

The Caversham Centre for Artists and Writers produced rich, creative collaborations
between South Africans and a host of international artists and writers since the mid1990 as a result of the work and vision of The Caversham Press and its Educational Trust. These collaborations were extended to local community leaders and young
people through residencies including the Hourglass Project. The processes of interaction, involving personal and communal reflection and dialogue about the strengths and resilience found in individuals, resulted in the development of creative skills, positive personal change, and effective and inspiring leadership.

A tangible output of the diverse foci of the Press, Educational Trust and Centre for Artists and Writers are the 67 books on display in this exhibition. They range from pamphlet-stitched texts and images by scholars and community leaders, through ambitious collaborations between South African and international artists and writers, to the fine-press, limited-edition book on the Cycads of KwaZulu-Natal. All these books reflect Malcolm Christian’s passionate commitment to realising the potential of a huge
range of people who met at Caversham over nearly 30 years. The diversity of intentions and themes evident in the publications shown here all embody Christian’s dedication to the highest levels of craftsmanship required to create artists’ books.

The JGCBA is proud to house and display the archive of the Caversham Press and Centre for Artists and Writers and to provide a view into a unique and fertile period of artist’s book production found nowhere else in South Africa. Exhibited at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Abstract Painting

24 October - 11 November 2023

“When you look at it, you have nothing to go on but yourself. You’re there and it’s there, and that’s what you have to go on. And I think the possibilities are of a much more intense, deeper relationship with art.”

Brice Marden (1938 – 2023) American abstract painter

Wits Art Museum presents an exhibition of large, abstract paintings from the 1960s and 1970s. ‘Abstract art’, sometimes called ‘non-representational art’, generally refers to artworks with formal qualities as the primary concern, rather than artworks that depict recognisable subjects.

Drawn from the museum’s collections of South African art, the paintings span two decades and explore a range of materials and styles within the broad descriptive term ‘abstract’. Although some works do include representational references, elements such as colour, materiality, shape and texture take precedence over narrative content.

Most of the paintings were either already in the university’s holdings in 1977 when the first official inventory was undertaken, or formed part of the major donation by the Schlesinger Foundation in 1979.

The titles of some of the paintings have titles that can provide a glimpse of the artist’s ideas, such as Jo Smail’s ‘Colour of Air’ and ‘The Legend’ by Cecil Skotnes, while other titles are more straightforward and descriptive, like ‘Silhouette’ by Walter Battiss and ‘Red Triangle’ by Kevin Atkinson.

Various techniques and materials are included in the works. Some are painted in hard-edge, geometric styles and others are expressive and gestural with organic shapes or fields of colour. All invite the viewer to engage with the physical reality of the artwork in an act of conscious looking and seeing. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Arte Povera and South African Art: In Conversation

Curated by Dr. Illaria Bernardi and Prof. Thembinkosi Goniwe

31 October - 9 December 2023

Arte Povera and South African Art: In Conversation is an exhibition project which aims to further develop the bridges between Italy and South Africa. By using a universal language, Art, it stimulates an intercultural dialogue and an exchange of experiences between two geo[1]cultural regions.

This artistic conversation encompasses the exhibition Arte Povera 1967-1971, curated by theItalian curator Ilaria Bernardi, and the exhibition South African Innovations, 1980s-2020s, curated by the South African curator Thembinkosi Goniwe.

Arte Povera is an artistic research developed in Italy in the second half of the 1960s and was defined as such in 1967 by curator Germano Celant. Even today, Arte Povera is Italy’s most internationally known postwar artistic research. The exhibition Arte Povera 1967-1971 is the first on this artistic research on the African continent.

The exhibition South African Innovations, 1980s-2020s underscores the experimentations and discoveries of 13 South African artists. Locally grounded and globally orientated, these artists have advanced artistic practices that intersect with international artistic movements such as Arte Povera. Exhibited in the Street, Gertrude Posel Core- and Mezzanine Galleries

 NEWWORK23

24 November - 10 February 2023

The Department of Fine Arts invites you to Newwork23 Graduate Exhibition 23 November 2023 @ 18:00 Wits Art Museum, The Point of Order & Art House Studios (Braamfontein, Johannesburg).

The Wits School of Arts, Fine Arts Department presents NEWWORK23, an exhibition of work by young artists in fulfilment of a BA Fine Art degree. It features 48 artists who work in a diverse range of media: performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, multimedia installation and interactive events. As the culmination of a fouryear process of learning, exchange, and experimentation, NEWWORK23 is an important indicator of emerging possibilities within the contemporary (South) African arts industries.

The class of 2023, as any graduating class, fearlessly makes themselves vulnerable as they sift through the debris of the last century to assemble provocations in crafting the next.

NEWWORK23 artist postcards and totes will be available for purchase at the opening event. All money raised will go towards NEWWORK24, in an ongoing culture of sharing self-raised funds from one year to the next. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Seen, Heard and Valued: WAM Celebrates 40 years of the Standard Bank African Art Collection

7 June 2021 – 26 February 2022

The Seen, Heard and Valued: WAM Celebrates 40 years of the Standard Bank African Art Collection exhibition highlighted the critically acclaimed and diverse Standard Bank African Art Collection and the partnership that made the collection possible.

The exhibition’s title refers to researcher and storyteller Brené Brown’s definition of connection as the energy between people when they feel seen, heard and valued. Featuring a selection of artworks from the collection, the exhibition invites the public to connect and engage with this extraordinary collection of African art. Exhibited in the Core, Street, Strip and Mezzanine Galleries

NEWWORK21

7 December 2021 - 12 February 2022

The NEWWORK project is an annual showcase of the graduating BAFA class. It features over 30 artists who work in a diverse range of media from photography and painting to sculpture and digital prints. It is fresh, critical and experimental. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Christine Dixie Blueprint for the DisOrder of Things

12 April - 04 June 2022

Indigo, the colour used for a “blueprint” is central to this exhibition. Working across multiple media, artists books, monoprints, ‘veils’ and a video, this body of work plays on the title of Michel Foucault’s book The Order of Things. Many of the iterations incorporate the text Las Meninas, the first chapter of The Order of Things.

Started during the first hard lockdown in 2020, it is a body of work driven by the emotional, social, and political changes that have come about as a result of Covid-19. The texts throughout the exhibition are disrupted as a metaphor for the way in which the ordered world has been rendered one of DisOrder. Exhibited in Gallery1

Celebrating one hundred years: The rise and development of the artists book over the last 100 years

April 1^st 2022 - June 3^rd 2022

This exhibition celebrates the development of the artists book throughout the 21^st century. Artists and books have been associated since the time of the illuminated manuscript, but the development of the artists book as we know it today began in the 1920s with the emergence of the livre d’ artiste. These relatively large, lavish, limited editions had inserts of original prints and drawings. Then in the 1950s and 60s, conceptual artists including Ed Ruscha and Dieter Roth integrated the book format into their art making practice. The term artists book was coined in the 1970s, today the artists book is widely used as a practical medium for self-expression. This exhibition displays a celebration of some of the defining moments in the history of the medium. Exhibited at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

TENX10: 100 artworks, by women and gender-diverse artists, from WAM collections

15 March 2022 - 23 July 2022.

TENX10 features artworks by 100 women and gender diverse artists, and marks Wits University’s centenary and Wits Art Museum’s tenth birthday.

In programming exhibitions, curators, including in this museum, has often neglected the extensive artistic contribution made by women and gender diverse artists to South African art. WAM therefore decided to focus primarily on these artists for the 2022 programming. TENX10 is the launch of that year-long focus.

The artworks on exhibition span 100 years with the earliest from around 1920 and the most recent from 2020, a century later. All are drawn from the sub-collections comprising WAM’s holdings. Many techniques and materials are included, from painting to photography, beads to bronze. Well-known artists and artists whose names we do not know are included, along with artworks by individual artists and those by artists’ collectives.

Multiples of ten also form the exhibition’s organising principle of using themes to highlight the diversity of the artworks. Themes are one way to make meaning of the artworks and offer ideas of ways to engage with them. Each artwork can suggest many themes and everyone viewing the exhibition has experiences and associations that influence the ways they understand artworks. The ten themes WAM curators have selected are: Relationships, History, Identity, Place, memory, Travel, Transition, Textual; Home and Found objects.  The themes are communicated through different coloured shapes on the labels next to the works. The key to the colours is also provided on laminated sheets throughout the exhibition and in the Education Resource.

Considering themes is one way to make meaning of artworks. Everyone viewing the exhibition has experiences and associations that influence  the ways they understand artworks, so many other themes can also be considered. Visitors are invited to share their interpretations with WAM and each other, and contribute to the response wall. Exhibited in the Core, Street, Strip and Mezzanine Galleries

WJK @ WAM & Wits 100: William Kentridge artworks from WAM collections

21 June 2022 - 13 August 2022.

In 2022 Wits University turns 100 and Wits Art Museum turns 10. As part of the celebrations, WAM presents an exhibition by William Kentridge, the internationally renowned artist and Wits alumnus who has played such a vital role in championing WAM’s creation and development.

WAM’s collection spans more than four decades, from 1980 to 2022, and comprises drawings, etchings and screenprints. Highlights include three  etchings from the 1980 Domestic Scenes series exhibited at the Market Gallery in 1981; Tropical Love Storm, an important early charcoal drawing from 1985;  Art in a state of Grace, Hope and Siege, the 1989 very large trio of screenprints on brown paper; the 1986/87 Hogarth in Johannesburg series of 8 etchings; the title drawing for Sobriety, Obesity & Growing Old, Kentridge’s fourth animated film in the series Drawings for Projection 1991; and the 1993-98 large colour etching Yellow General. 

A few artworks with special connections to the university have been loaned for exhibition. These include Kentridge’s first bronze sculpture Man on a High Chair, 1984, that was made at the Wits Fine Art Department; Ubu Tells the Truth, 1996, a series of 8 etchings made for the UBU+- 101 exhibition at Wits Art Galleries; and Asie Mineure, 2001-2003, included in Tapestries William Kentridge: A collaboration with the Stephens Tapestry Studio held at Wits Art Museum in 2014. 

An edited projection of Oh To Believe in Another World, Kentridge’s latest film which is based on Shostakovich’s 10th Symphony and commissioned by the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland is on display, along with some of the original three-dimensional set models created to produce the film, giving the exhibition a richness and diversity for which this world famous multi-disciplinary artist is known. Exhibited in Gallery1

WJK: In black and white. And read all over

21 June - 3 September 2022

Deservedly, a great many books have been published by and about William Kentridge. On display are the Kentridge publications in the JGCBA holdings: monographs on this internationally acclaimed artist over 35 years, ranging from the 1987 Standard Bank Young Artists Award booklet to the most recent publication of 2021, William Kentridge: Domestic Scenes, a precursor to a multi-volume catalogue raisonné of prints.

All of these books embody the rich visual and textual record of Kentridge’s diverse creative outputs, his frank conversations and inspiring lectures. The boundaries of Kentridge’s multidisciplinary works are masterfully smudged; by strategically applying creative interventions, many of the publications dissolve into the realm of the artists book.

Kentridge’s artists books on display include Portage, an accordion-fold book with its chine-collé shadow-beings trudging along the verge of its found pages, animation drawings manifest as flipbooks and unbound works such as the theatrical stereoscopes and the revealing water-mark books on handmade paper. To name but a few.

WJK: In black and white is about word and image, his artist’s books and the wonderful art of the Kentridge monograph. Exhibited at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Gisele Wolfson: HER EYE ON THE STORM

17 August - 22 October 2022

Communities in Mozambique creating life skills support for HIV/Aids orphans. Photographer Gisèle Wufsohn. An early portrait of photographer Gisèle Wulsohn. Image supplied by the family.

As part of WAM’s year long focus on women for its 10th year and Wits University’s centenary celebrations during 2022, this exhibition is a visual homage to the extensive work and life of this important activist and social documentary photographer. Curated by Beathur Baker, independent curator, interdisciplinary cultural producer and filmmaker, the exhibition comprises more than 35 years of photographs that reflect on women’s rights, children’s communities, the importance of equal access to healthcare and treatment. 
 
Gisèle Wulfsohn’s portraits and visual essays bear testimony not only to the political and contemporary moment but also make real the human impact, the identities and lived experiences of those impacted by events away from the traditional spheres of influence and power.

Central to her imagery is the attempt to document the toils and triumphs of the lives of ordinary and iconic South Africans from across the socio-economic spectrum. Exhibited in the Core, Street, Strip and Mezzanine Galleries

Donna Kukama: Ways-of-Remembering-Existing

31 August –  05 November 2022

Wits Art Museum is pleased to announce Ways-of-Remembering-Existing, a solo exhibition by donna Kukama. The exhibition spans the various aspects of Kukama’s practice to include performance, works on canvas, sculptural objects, video and a site-specific installation.

The title, Ways-of-Remembering-Existing, is rooted in Kukama's ongoing PhD creative research which critiques existing narratives of history and traditional modes of storytelling. Through her practice, Kukama proposes texts - written with and through time, breath, and memory - and objects whose grammar is opacity and ephemerality.

Amongst the other works in the exhibition, Kukama will also present aspects of a project begun in 2015: 'a history book for those who absolutely need to be remembered'. The Book was originally conceived as a tool for questioning and rethinking memorials, monuments, and national commemorations within the South African landscape, and has since presented chapters in a range of other contexts. Exhibited in Gallery1

Creative Research: The Artists’ Books of Veronika Schäpers, Robbin Ami Silverberg and Julie Chen

22 September - 15 December 2022

The exceptional books on this exhibition at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts show the commitment of the three internationally acclaimed and award-winning artists’ creative research into the book as artwork.

Creative research is central to the practice of these artists. Through their diverse artists’ books they explore the complexities of personal and inter-cultural positions, language, and meaning-making through being.

Schäpers explores a wide range of materials that offer visual and tactile solutions through the sensual medium of the book. Silverberg’s books embody her research into paper as her preferred material and as a vehicle for the multisensory experience of touch, reading and the transfer of ideas. Chen finds meaning in everyday experiences through the immersive experience of engaging with book structure and materiality. Exhibited at the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

NEWWORK22

1 December 2022 - 18 February 2023

The NEWWORK project is an annual showcase that is produced by the graduating BAFA class. It is an opportunity for the group to debut themselves as the next generation of artists. Having previously had a presence online, the exhibition will be publicly launched at Wits Art Museum, The Point of Order and Arthouse Studios.

NEWWORK22 features 35 artists that work in a diverse range of media: performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, multimedia installation and interactive events. NEWWORK is fresh, critical and experimental.  Exhibited in Gallery 1
  

WAMkelekile - Unmasked 2020 - 2022

15 December 2022 - 11 March 2023

During much of the pandemic, Wits Art Museum along with other museums and galleries, was closed to the public. There was however still a lot of activity behind the scenes. The African art collection continued to grow and, now that the museum is again able to welcome visitors, this exhibition is an opportunity to present some of the artworks that were obtained over the last three years. 

'WAMkelekile', which means "you are welcome" in isiXhosa, is an exhibition that showcases some of the artworks that WAM collected over the past three years during the pandemic when the museum was closed to the public. On display are both contemporary and historical artworks from Africa made from a wide variety of materials. Exhibited in the Street-, Gertrude Posel Core- and Mezzanine Galleries

Meghan Judge – Static Drift

12 October – 6 November 2021

In her exhibition Static Drift, Meghan Judge explored the sonic potentials that static has for opening perceptions. During a voyage across the Indian Ocean, Judge noted how, as radio signal began to fade away, elemental weathering activity rearranged sailors’ orientation toward the sea. Judge works between terra and ocean, locating relations that, in her words, “…do not represent an end of communication, but rather an opening toward perceptibility...” Featuring sonic compositions and sculptures, the exhibition’s works formed an immersive activation of weathering-space.

The exhibition formed part of the artist’s submission towards a practice-based PhD at the Wits School of Arts. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Paul Emmanuel – Men and Monuments

3 March 2020 – 30 April 2021

For the past decade, in an ongoing project titled The Lost Men, renowned artist Paul Emmanuel has challenged conventions around war memorials. Artworks from all three iterations of The Lost Men were featured in Paul Emmanuel’s Men and Monuments exhibition. The works were envisioned as ‘countermemorials’. Large silk and voile banners served as temporary monuments – highlighting vulnerability – an aspect of masculinity so often denied by history and society. The banners were produced through a gruelling physical process; Emmanuel impressed the names of randomly selected servicemen into his skin without reference to rank, nationality or ethnicity. His imprinted, naked and inflamed skin was then photographed and the images transferred onto delicate silk banners.

The fragility of the banners subtly addressed the vulnerability of the male body and the violence of its exposure to war, history, the elements and our gaze. Exhibited in the Core and Mezzanine Gallery

Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts' Samplings

26 March - 6 July 2019

A triangular book; a movable book; a round book; a glass book; a metre wide pop-up book; a 10 metre long folding book. These are a few of the collector’s favourite things, which were on display in two exhibitions at Wits Art Museum to celebrate the opening of the new Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts. Artists’ books are artworks in the form of books, rather than books about art. Art collector and philanthropist Jack Ginsberg began collecting in this field in the early 1970s, almost from the inception of this contemporary art form. He has recently donated his world-renowned collection to Wits Art Museum. The collection is unrivalled in Africa and in the Southern Hemisphere and includes more than 3 000 artworks, plus a unique archive of an additional 3 000 items on the history and development of the book art genre. Exhibited in the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Albert Adams: An Invincible Spirit - Curated by Marilyn Martin

2 April - 25 May 2019

WAM celebrated the 90th anniversary of the birth of Johannesburg-born artist Albert Adams with Albert Adams: An Invincible Spirit. Adams was refused entry to UCT during Apartheid, but went on to study and teach Fine Art abroad. Although he left South Africa in 1960, he visited frequently. He consistently returned to the depiction of themes related to his country of birth. With a visceral expressionism, his works display a deep social commitment and searing commentary. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

Leeto: A Sam Nhlengethwa Print Retrospective - Curated by Boitumelo Tlhoaele

11 June - 17 August 2019

Leeto: A Sam Nhlengethwa Print Retrospective surveyed the print work of renowned artist Sam Nhlengethwa from 1978 to 2018. Leeto is a seTswana/seSotho word for ‘journey’ and, as the word suggests, the exhibition explores the ongoing artistic footsteps of Nhlengethwa. The underpinning theme of the exhibition was jazz. An early influence in Nhlengethwa’s works was the underground township jazz community; Nhlengethwa’s brother was a jazz musician and he began collecting jazz records at the age of 17. Leeto: A Sam Nhlengethwa Print Retrospective drew links between the fluid nature of jazz improvisation and Nhlengethwa’s study of an everchanging community. Not only is it a recurrent theme in his work and something that Nhlengethwa loves and is inspired by, but jazz begins to articulate the various possibilities for a deeper understanding and reading of his oeuvre. Exhibited in the Core and Mezzanine Galleries

Joachim Schönfeldt - Panels of Place

27 August - 19 October 2019

Including nearly 50 works produced since 1994, this exhibition was the most comprehensive review of Schönfeldt’s ‘plein air’ paintings to date. Capturing many iconic Johannesburg sites, like Orlando Stadium and the Nelson Mandela Railway Bridge, as well as domestic settings, on carved wooden panels, the works reminded us of the complex layers of meaning that are inherent in place. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

Daylin Paul – A Broken Landscape - Curated by Leigh Leyde

9 October - 27 October 2019

In Broken Land, photographer and journalist Daylin Paul investigated the impact of Mpumalanga’s coal power stations on the local communities. The exhibition went beyond documenting the environmental cost of extracting and burning coal to “personalising the experience of the local people who are on the front lines of this crisis.” Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

A beast slouches and so forth: Robert Hodgins at WAM - Curated by Julia Charlton

24 July - 9 November 2019

The exhibition title is a combination of the titles of two paintings by Robert Hodgins in Wits Art Museum’s collection. Highlighting Hodgins’ lesser-shown paintings in the collection, the exhibition included powerful works that wrestle with the paradox of a world in which extremes of beauty and horror co-exist.

NEWWORK19

26 November 2019 - 1 February 2020

The NEWWORK project is an annual showcase, produced by the graduating Wits BAFA class. It is the debut show for a new generation of young artists. NEWWORK19 featured 33 artists that work in a diverse range of media; performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, multimedia installation and interactive events. Participating artists: Kira de Carvalho, Teri Davids, Kirsty de Kock, Tracy Edser, Kay’leigh Fisher, Gillian Fleischmann, Makaela Jade Gaines, Theesen Govender, Liam Howroyd, Jessica Jindrich, Hemali Khoosal, Oratile Papi Konopi, Saajidah Madhi, Siyabonga Mahlaba, Shannen Ayla Marks, Lindelwa Masuku, Tammi Mbambo, Micayla Mohamadie, Queenzela Mokoena, Kundai Moyo, Shaylin Naicker, Bhakti Nathoo, Kate Northmore, Mohini Pillay, Omphemetse Patient Ramathlatse, Athini Rathebe, Chelsea Selvan, Kgalalelo Shoai, Lauren Spilhaus, Wesley Steyn, Sinead Thorpe, Courtney Townshend, Thulisani Zenda. Exhibited in Gallery1

David Koloane: Chronicles of a Resilient Visionary - Curated by Dr Thembinkosi Goniwe

6 November 2019 - 22 February 2020

The exhibition celebrated Koloane's iconic legacy. An artist and social activist, his art provided insight into the daily experiences and struggles of Johannesburg’s black community. As a scholar and astute commentator on the South African art landscape, he challenged conceptions around black art, contributing to elevating it from its previous label of township art. Koloane was also a mentor for many of South Africa’s contemporary artists, and worked to create spaces, such as the Bag Factory Artists’ Studios and Thupelo workshops for young black artists to flourish. The exhibition was organised in collaboration with Goodman Gallery and included works from the WAM collection and the artist's personal archive. Exhibited in the Core and Mezzanine Gallery

Gabberjabbs &c: Walter Hamady and The Perishable Press Limited - Curated by Rosalind Cleaver

25 November 2019 – 25 March 2020

The Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts presented a retrospective exhibition of the work of acclaimed and influential book artist, Walter Hamady. The founder of the award winning Perishable Press, Hamady was an artist, book designer, papermaker, poet and teacher. The exhibition featured more than 125 of his artist’s books and are all part of the permanent collection of the JGCBA. Many of these high quality, beautiful handmade books were made in collaboration with authors or poets, while others are his irreverent, humorous and innovative books that he referred to as the Gabberjabbs. Exhibited in the Jack Ginsberg Centre for Book Arts

Writing Art's Histories: Exhibition Classroom - Facilitated by Stacey Vorster and Leigh Leyde

1 February - 1 April 2018

This was an exhibition of artworks that formed the basis of a postgraduate programme in History of Art. The course aims to introduce students to the many ways that art’s histories can be told. Students developed original research based on objects in WAM’s collection.  Exhibited in Gallery 1

Alfred Thoba: A Step becomes a Statement - Curated by Julia Charlton

14 March - 3 June 2018

This survey exhibition presented work by Alfred Thoba, a South African artist with a distinctive style and vision that has cemented his unique legacy. The show spanned four decades and represented an indepth and overdue look at a painter, whose work chronicles major milestones in South Africa’s political history and his own personal journey. The show was accompanied by a catalogue published by the museum. Exhibited in the Core, Street and Mezzanine Galleries

Umlindelo wamaKholwa - Sabelo Mlangeni - Curated by Kabelo Malatsie

27 June - 28 October 2018

Umlindelo wamaKholwa featured the work of multiple prize-winning and internationally exhibited Johannesburg-based photographer Sabelo Mlangeni. The mostly black and white photographs focused on two South African Zionist church communities and demonstrated an acute awareness of the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, of separation and subjection, identification and objectification. The works probed the artist's own beliefs as much as they explored the spiritual commitments of his photographic subjects. The exhibition was made possible through support from the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain and Dr Joel Cabrita, at that time an academic at Cambridge University, England. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

HotH: Highlights of the WAM Holdings - 2016-2018 - Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith

14 November 2018 - 24 March 2019

The permanent collections of historical and contemporary African artworks, are constantly evolving and growing. The exhibition highlighted some of the recent additions to the collection acquired between 2016 and 2018. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

NEWWORK18 BAFA Graduate Exhibition - Coordinated by Reshma Chhiba and Rangoato Hlasane

27 November - 9 December 2018

As the culmination of a four-year process of learning, exchange and experimentation NEWWORK18 was an important indicator of emerging possibilities within the contemporary (South) African arts industries. The works presented spoke to the complexities of South African and global politics, intersectionality, difference and diversity, gender based violence, youth culture, engaging history and identity through trade, industry and folklore, the role of new media and online platforms in story-telling and the role of art to effect social change.

The NEWWORK project is an annual showcase that is produced by the graduating BAFA class. It is an opportunity for the group to debut themselves as the next generation of young artists. NEWWORK18 featured 32 artists who worked in a diverse range of media; performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture multimedia installation and interactive events. The exhibition was accompanied by a publication. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Lifescapes: Six Object Biographies - Curated by Joni Brenner, Stacey Vorster and Dr Justine Wintjes

1 February - 9 July 2017

This exhibition was a culmination of an innovative post-graduate course entitled ‘Writing Art’s Histories’, run by the Wits History of Art Department. The course required each student to write the ‘biography’ of a single object from WAM’s collection.

The exhibition presented six objects researched by students in 2015 in dialogue with other objects and images, evoking aspects of the objects' wider lives that students had uncovered.

The biographies are published in detail in an accompanying book of the same name. Lifescapes is the third in a series of linked books and exhibitions based on postgraduate object biography research. This is the first time that WAM hosted the project. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

Overtime: representations, values and imagined futures of 'classical African Art' - Curated by Tatenda Magaisa and Katleho Shoro

22 February - 23 April 2017

Overtime was a collaborative exhibition that included both past and present WAM student staff. The participants were encouraged to engage the museum’s ‘classical African Art’ collection from which they produced new multimedia works in order to question the value of the classical African items and the making of meaning.

The exhibition explored the various ways that African cultural material has been, is and can be represented, valued and imagined in the future. It considered the ideologies that have influenced archaic visions of the African cultural material, art and Africa itself. Thus, critical to the exhibition was the idea of the cultural material having relevance and meaning over time.

Anathi Bukani, Kevyah Cardoso, Michael Cheesman, Rosa Elk, Luke Gibson, Leigh Leyde, Lebogang Mabusela, Gontse Mathabathe, Boitumelo Molalugi, Boitumelo Motau, Maxine Thomik and Matshelane Xhakaza, were featured. A catalogue accompanied the exhibition. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Moses Tladi (1903 - 1959) - Curated by Julia Charlton

15 March - 16 July 2017

This seminal exhibition celebrated the life and work of one of South Africa's great, but largely unknown landscape painters. The works poignantly reflect the social, economic and political contexts in which he lived and worked. The exhibition was based on a version previously shown at Iziko South African National Gallery (SANG), but included additional works. The exhibition was accompanied by the book, The Artist in the Garden: The Quest for Moses Tladi, by Angela Read Lloyd and published by Print Matters. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

Show No Pain: The collected films of Michael MacGarry 1999 – 2017 - Curated by Michael MacGarry

3 May - 18 June 2017

This solo exhibition by Johannesburg-based artist, Michael MacGarry presented a survey of the artist's film and video work, from early animations as a student in 1999 through to a purpose-made two channel film installation titled Parang, which focused on the artist’s family history in the Far East. The exhibition consisted of sixteen works; short film, animation and feature-length video installation as well as text-based works describing unrealised films. Several recurring themes in the artist’s filmic oeuvre were evident. Notably: the interrogation of Modern architecture; historical cinematic representations of Africa; man and landscape; notions of entropy and the concept of eternal recurrence. Exhibited in Gallery 1

One colour at a time: Contemporary Screenprints - Curated collaboratively by Alexandre Vosloo; Nathi Simelane and Shannin Antonopoulo from Artist Proof Studio, Minenkulu Ngoyi; Isaac Zavale and Rochelle van Eeden from Prints on Paper, Thabiso Kholobeng from the Division of Visual Arts, Wits School of Arts and Leigh Leyde; Gontse Mathabathe; Fiona Rankin-Smith; Lesley Cohen and Julia Charlton from Wits Art Museum.

27 June - 12 November 2017

Fine Art screenprinting is a flourishing medium in South Africa as is evident in the group of young and emerging artists whose work was showcased in this exhibition. The exhibition was collaboratively curated with three Johannesburg printing studios - Artists Proof Studio, Prints on Paper and Division of Visual Arts, Wits School of Arts (DIVA) - who each used their own criteria to select works. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Warhol Unscreened: Artworks from the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Collection - Curated by Lesley Cohen

27 July - 8 October 2017

This major exhibition of one of the 20th century's most iconic and influential artists included over 80 of the artist’s major screenprints including Flowers, Campbell’s Soup Cans, Muhammed Ali, Marilyn Monroe, Mickey Mouse and Superman. In addition, Warhol’s celebrated Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers record album, a selection of Interview magazine covers, and the renowned Birmingham Race Riot image were on exhibition. Over 5 000 people attended the exhibition opening and it holds the record as the WAM show that has attracted the most visitors. The exhibition was made possible by Bank of America Merrill Lynch with additional support from BASA, Black Africa and KayaFM. The exhibition was accompanied by an educational resource produced by the museum. Exhibited in the Core, Street and Mezzanine Galleries

Gideon Mendel: Drowning World - Curated by Gideon Mendel and Fiona Rankin-Smith

17 October 2017 - 25 February 2018

This powerful exhibition by South African-born contemporary photographer, Gideon Mendel, included three discrete bodies of photographic work, Submerged Portraits, Floodlines, Watermarks and a video titled The Water Chapters. For over a decade, Mendel travelled to various countries in the aftermath of devastating floods, The photographs demonstrate the artist's travels to various parts of the world and capture the reality of floods across cultural and geographical boundaries and illustrate the pervasive impact of climate change. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

Masixole Feni: A Drain on Our Dignity - Curated by Masixole Feni

25 October 2017 - 28 February 2018

In 2015 Masixole Feni won the Ernest Cole Award for his project - A Drain on Our Dignity. Feni is a freelance photojournalist who documents social issues in and around Cape Town, primarily the lack of service delivery and life of the marginalised. He took on the unpleasant task of photographing the lack of sanitation, because he did not want a photographer from outside the community telling their stories. After all, “that too would be A Drain on Our Dignity and that’s what inspired this project”. Feni’s representation of inequality, structural violence and his own imaginative response through photography is in itself a reflection on human creativity despite the limits imposed by power. The exhibition was accompanied by a book. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

NEWWORK17 Graduate Exhibition - Coordinated by Reshma Chhiba and Rangoato Hlasane

28 November - 10 December 2017

This exhibition of work by young artists in fulfillment of a BA Fine Arts degree at Wits was located at the museum as well as other campus spaces. 20 artists that work in a diverse range of media, from performance, photography, drawing, painting, sculpture to multimedia installations were featured. The exhibition was accompanied by a digital catalogue and each artist designed a postcard that was available for sale. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Satellite Cities – Svea Josephy - Curated by the artist

20 January – 6 March 2016

Svea Josephy presented large colour photographs that explored connections between places with the same names. The works, displayed as diptychs, investigated the South African urban landscape through communities’ adoption of names of other places connected to conflict and war. The photographs place the suburbs and areas surrounding South Africa’s cities at the heart of a network of interconnected perspectives and relationships. The exhibition was organised in conjunction with the Wits City Institute with funding from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and was accompanied by a small publication. Exhibited in Gallery 1

The Sound of Silence - Alfredo Jaar - Curated by Lara Kosseff

24 February – 10 April 2016

The Sound of Silence is a major installation work by New York based artist, architect and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar. It takes as its point of departure, South African photographer Kevin Carter’s Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a starving child being stalked by a vulture in Sudan (2006). The installation, in an aluminium structure, with rows of bright fluorescent lights at the back, contained an 8-minute film with a silent narrative of the sombre story. It highlighted a complex set of ethical and personal questions about the act of looking and the responsibilities that follow. The exhibition was generously supported by the Goodman Gallery. Exhibited in the Core Gallery

When Tomorrow Comes - Curated by Jacki McInnes, Professor Jyoti Mistry (Wits Department of Film and Television) and Professor Michael Titlestad (Wits Department of English)

16 March – 29 May 2016

Globally and nationally, publics are repeatedly confronted with narratives that suggest that environmental, social and economic catastrophe is inevitable. This exhibition asked pre-eminent South African, African and European artists to participate in working through apocalypticism to confront the inevitability of this conclusion, and to think beyond it to forms of survival, regeneration and rebirth. The result was both powerful and thought-provoking, with some controversial moments. The exhibition was accompanied by a broadsheet publication and education resource produced by the curators.

Black Modernisms in South Africa (1940 – 1990) 6 April – 19 June 2016 Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery Curated by Prof. Emeritus Anitra Nettleton in collaboration with Dr Same Mdluli and Bongani Mahlangu Black African Modernisms (1940-1990) coincided with a meeting of the international research project, Multiple Modernisms with participant art scholars from around the world. The artworks on show, by over 20 artists, were drawn from Wits Art Museum’s permanent collections, explored some ‘Modernist’ approaches that interested black South African artists from the 1940s to 1990. A z-fold pamphlet was produced. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Into the Light - An exhibition by Marcus Neustetter - Curated by the artist

27 April - 19 June 2016

Marcus Neustetter explores archaeological and cosmological mysteries in his quest for meaning. His artistic investigations focus on the spaces in-between, within and between these disciplines. The artist uses light as a medium for storytelling in his artistic practice. By inviting audiences from various communities across South Africa to engage with a variety of light-sources, he enables a playful interaction that ultimately culminates in a series of light and long-time exposure photographs and video work. These serve not as art objects in and of themselves, but rather as traces of local encounters in time and space. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

From the Heart: Personal Perspectives on the WAM Collection - Curated by Dr Same Mdluli and Tatenda Magaisa

8 June – 17 July 2016

From the Heart was an exhibition based on each WAM staff member’s (not only curators’) first encounter with African art. It encouraged a nuanced engagement with the artworks that WAM staff work with and care for by offering a distinct and visceral engagement with artworks, artefacts and objects that are part of their 'cultural heritage'. A publication was produced. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Walter Battiss: "I invented myself" The Jack Ginsberg Collection - Curated by Warren Siebrits

6 July - 11 December 2016

For more than 35 years, well-known art collector and philanthropist Jack Ginsberg has assembled an extraordinary collection of more than 700 artworks, books and ephemera by esteemed South African artist Walter Battiss. The collection was shown at Wits Art Museum for the first time. While previous Battiss exhibitions were conceived thematically, this exhibition was organised chronologically. The exhibition was accompanied by a 340-page illustrated book with five different covers and an educational resource. Battiss merchandise, from the Walter Battiss Company, such as scarves, T-shirts, crockery, wrapping paper and postcards were also on sale. At the end of the exhibition, the collection was donated to WAM as part of the permanent holdings and forms the nucleus of a major Walter Battiss Archive. The collection is available to scholars for research. Exhibited in Core, Street, Strip and Mezzanine Galleries

Off the Wall: An 80th Birthday Celebration with Linda Givon

11 August - 20 November 2016

Curated by Linda Givon in collaboration with James Webb and Josh Ginsburg Linda Givon, legendary commercial art gallerist and South African arts supporter, celebrated her 80th birthday in August 2016. To celebrate this auspicious occasion, Wits Art Museum hosted an exhibition of works from Givon’s private art collection. This project provided unprecedented access to important works and the stories that link them, as well as fascinating insights into the private person behind the public face of Linda Givon. Works on display included the very first William Kentridge that Givon purchased from gallery owner Reinhold Cassirer, powerful works by Dumile Feni, Sydney Kumalo, Willie Bester and Ezrom Legae. Givon nurtured the careers of countless important South African artists and in so doing developed her enviable collection. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue. Unfortunately, the museum was closed for a significant part of the run of this exhibition due to #FeesMustFall. Exhibited in the Gallery 1, Core and Street Galleries

NEWWORK16 Gradshow - Coordinated by Reshma Chhiba

1 December – 8 December 2016

Inspired and informed by the radical political and social events during #FeesMustFall protests, the 2016 graduation exhibition of the Wits School of Fine Arts sought to address key issues of the curriculum: Who is it aimed at and who designs it? It highlighted works by young artists that spoke to the thoughts and experiences of the youth of South Africa. WAM was used as a space to display a documentary video of each artist contextualizing their work while students displayed their works at other spaces in the city.

Stars of the North: Revisiting Sculpture from Limpopo - Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith, Julia Charlton, Leigh Leyde, Professor Anitra Nettleton

3 March - 12 April 2015

Drawing on WAM’s holdings and prompted by a generous donation by Trent Read, this exhibition relooked at the histories and work of a group of sculptors living in rural areas in the 1980s. All learned their skills in the context of indigenous wood and clay sculptural traditions and were then drawn into the contemporary commercial gallery system. The exhibition explored the artists’ experiences of and responses to contemporary worlds and offered insights into some of the political and artistic debates of the time. A small catalogue produced by the museum accompanied the exhibition. Exhibited in the Core Gallery

Unsettled: One Hundred Years War of Resistance by Xhosa Against Boer and British - Curated by Cedric Nunn

10 March 2015 - 12 April 2015

The exhibition project launched in Grahamstown in 2014 and was made possible through the support of a Mellon Foundation Scholarship and Galerie Seippel. Cedric Nunn, a South African photographer acclaimed for his photographs taken during apartheid, aims to instigate social change and highlight lesser seen aspects of society with his photography. Unsettled dealt with the nine wars that Xhosa people were subjected to between 1779 and 1879 in their fight against Afrikaner and British colonial settler forces.  Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

Ngezinyayo - Migrant Journeys - Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith

10 April - 20 July 2015

This exhibition coincided with the celebration of 20 years of democracy in South Africa. However, the issues surrounding migrants and migrancy addressed in this exhibition are part of a nearly 200 year history that continues to profoundly affect our society today.

This exhibition brought together the heritage of many southern African language groups, through the inclusion of film, photography, contemporary artworks, artefacts from ethnographic collections, archival documents and interviews. A book entitled A Long Way Home: Migrant Worker Worlds 1800 - 2014 was published to accompany the exhibition and includes essays by leading local and international academics. An educational resource was also produced. Exhibited in the Core, Street, Strip and Mezzanine Galleries

Time and Again - A Penny Siopis Retrospective - Curated by Penny Siopis with Fiona Rankin-Smith

22 April - 20 July 2015

Time and Again showcased a survey of the work of globally recognised South African artist, Penny Siopis. This exhibition reflected over three decades of Siopis’ creative production, and drew on the recurring themes of history, sexuality, race, memory, estrangement and violence.

Many of the works were featured on her recent retrospective exhibition of the same title held at the Iziko South African National Gallery in Cape Town in the same year. A book published by Wits University Press was available. Exhibited in the Core, Street and Mezzanine Galleries

Fundraising Auction Exhibition - Curated by WAM Staff

13 May - 27 May 2015

This exhibition featured artworks donated by artists and collectors to be sold to raise funds for Wits Art Museum Endowment. In addition to the donors of the artworks, the event was made possible by sponsors Bidvest, Hollard, Business and Arts South Africa, Spier Wine Farm, Strauss & Co. Fine Art Auctioneers and Consultants, YSWARA LUXE, Ooh Lala Confectionary and Rosebank College. The accompanying catalogue was published by Wits Art Museum. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Peter Schutz: An Eye on the World - Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith, Walter Oltman and Jill Waterman

10 June - 16 August 2015

Peter Schütz: An Eye on the World focused on the extraordinary carved work of late sculptor and longtime Wits Fine Art lecturer Peter Schütz. Using his most favoured medium of jelutong wood, Schütz created exceptionally fine carvings which explore themes of violence, myth, religion and spirituality. 

Madonnas, saints and religious artefacts depicting the female figure are iconic symbols that influenced his work. A book published by WAM accompanied the exhibition. Supported by the Standard Bank of South Africa, Hans Merensky Foundation, Charles and Lilian Lloys Ellis, Business and Arts South Africa, Peter and Heidi Kurth, Sasha Fabris, Jill Waterman, Neil Dundas and Goodman Gallery. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Beadwork, Art and the Body: Dilo Tše Dintši/ Abundance - Curated by Professor Anitra Nettleton with Dr Christopher Richards

28 July - 11 October 2015

The exhibition showcased a selection of the dazzling array of South African beadwork that is part of Wits Art Museum’s permanent collection, alongside contemporary works that were loaned for the exhibition. Innovative display techniques evoked the bodies that the beadwork was designed and made for. A book of the same title was published by the museum to accompany the exhibition. The National Arts Council sponsored the creation of dazzling beaded chandeliers that were installed in the WAM Café and highlighted the contemporary relevance of beadwork in South Africa. Exhibited in the Street, Core and Mezzanine Galleries

Fak'Ugesi Lab: Exploring Cultural Technologies for Future Joburg - Curated by Tegan Bristow and Irini Papadimitriou

12 September - 25 October 2015

Wits Art Museum in collaboration with Wits Division of Digital Arts, held an artist residency as part of the 2015 annual Fak’ugesi Digital Innovation Festival. The WAM Gallery1 was transformed into a ‘Fak’ugesi Lab’. Visitors were encouraged to engage with the four resident artists as part of their digital art-making process. Visitors also participated in workshops during the three week residency. The creative outcomes of the residency were unveiled at a special event open to the public. The exhibition was supported by the SA-UK Seasons 2014 & 2015, a partnership between the Department of Arts and Culture and the British Council. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Catherine Gfeller - Passing the City Through You - Curated by Catherine Gfeller and Fiona Rankin-Smith

24 September 2015 - 9 November 2015

In September 2013, Gfeller undertook a research residency in Johannesburg, at the Wits School of Arts. Passing the City Through You exhibited the videos, photographs, audios and texts created during her stay. Gfeller’s photographic and video work is based on incessantly pulsating urban landscapes. She aims to transform the anonymity of the city through the intersection of urban landscapes and human presences. The exhibition images highlighted the inner city of Johannesburg, as a succession of friezes composed by collage, montage, and superimposition. Support from the Embassy of Switzerland and Pro Helvetia (Swiss Arts Council) enabled this project. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

A City Refracted - Graeme Williams - Curated by Graeme Williams

14 October 2015 - January 2016

Graeme Williams was the third winner of the Ernest Cole Award, initiated by the University of Cape Town and named after documentary photographer Ernest Cole. Williams’ images explore the complex history of displacement and migration in Johannesburg. The works on exhibition reflected the shifting typologies of the inner city of Johannesburg through the use of an informal style, which suggests waves of movement and migration. The exhibition was accompanied by a book published by Jacana. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

Activate/Captivate - Curated by Dr. Laura De Becker and Leigh Leyde

5 November 2015 - 6 February 2016

This exhibition explored the richness of WAM's collection and highlighted the various ways the unique university collection of African art has inspired creativity amongst students, artists and researchers across a wide range of disciplines. Collaborative work with the Wits Music School, Wits Digital Art Department, Wits Fine Art Department, the University of Johannesburg Graphic Design Department and South African artists all formed part of this rich and exciting exhibition.

The exhibition, accompanied by a book of the same name, was part of a major multi-year project at WAM, which was funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Exhibited in the Core and Street Galleries

NEWWORK15 24 - Facilitated by Reshma Chiiba

November – 6 December 2015

NEWWORK15 is an annual exhibition of work by young artists in fulfilment of a BA Fine Art Degree at Wits School of Arts. The exhibition, in 2015, was located at Wits Art Museum, The Point of Order project space, and surrounding studio spaces in the Wits School of Arts and Arthouse. Basing their work on responses to the urgent issues raised by the national student movement in the last months of 2015, students also participated in assessment of their final bodies of work, thus developing a collective curatorial framework. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Jodi Bieber - Between Darkness and Light - Curated by Jodi Bieber

17 April - 21 July 2014

This mid-career retrospective included photographs from some of Bieber’s most significant bodies of work including Las Canas, Real Beauty, Soweto, Between Dogs (&) Wolves and Going Home – Illegality and Repatriation – South Africa/ Mozambique. Real Beauty focused on the female body while Soweto is a celebration and portrait of contemporary life in the renowned Johannesburg township. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Ijusi 1994 -2014 Towards a New African Visual Language - Curated by Garth Walker

12 August -14 September 2014

This exhibition highlighted the contribution of the experimental South African design magazine Ijusi that was first published following the advent of democracy in 1994. The magazine posed the important question “What makes me South African and what does that ‘look’ like?” The publication made invaluable contributions to the ongoing discourse about representation and identity in South Africa. Exhibited in the Core Gallery

DOING HAIR: Art and Hair in Africa - Curated by Professor Anitra Nettleton, Lesley Cohen, Laura de Becker et al

19 August - 2 November 2014

The political, social, cultural and economic implications of hair and hairdressing as expressed through artworks were explored in the exhibition. Extraordinary objects used to protect, style and adorn hair, historical and contemporary artworks, barbershop posters, films and installations from Wits Art Museum and other public and private collections were included. Hairdressers who work in neighbouring Braamfontein participated through a project that culminated in selected hairstyles being professionally photographed and included in the exhibition This exhibition was sponsored by Black Like Me, and a catalogue and an educational resource was produced. Exhibited in the Gallery 1 and Mezzanine Galleries

William Kentridge: Tapestries - A collaboration with Stephens Tapestry Studio - Curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith

19 November 2014 - 22 February 2015

In late 2014 William Kentridge’s work was presented in three major art venues in Johannesburg. Johannesburg Art Gallery hosted The Refusal of Time, The Goodman Gallery exhibited a series of landscape drawings and Wits Art Museum showcased tapestries, and associated works, created in conjunction with the Marguerite Stephens weaving studio. The artist described showing the exhibition of tapestries at WAM with its remarkable collection of African art as continuing an ongoing project of showing the indeterminate and at times non-existent boundaries between artisan, artist, craft and art. Exhibited in the Core, Street and Mezzanine Galleries

Landscape, Figure, Portrait - Curated by Dr Justine Wintjes and Professor Anitra Nettleton

30 January - 13 March 2013

A range of objects from the WAM collection was selected and displayed for use in the teaching of the second year Wits Hstory of Art course. The themes centred on notions of landscape, figure and portrait.

A Lasting Impression: The Robert Hodgins Print Archive - Curated by Julia Charlton

8 February – 7 April 2013

The Robert Hodgins Print Archive was established in 2007 when renowned South African artist Robert Hodgins donated 400 prints from his personal collection to Wits Art Museum. This exhibition presented a selection of items from this archive, with works in many different media dating from 1971 to 2009 all displaying the artist’s critical and historically informed engagement with the human figure.

The exhibition was accompanied by a major publication produced by Wits Art Museum. Exhibited in the Street, Core and Mezzanine Galleries

Izilwane/Diphologolo: Animals and Art in Africa - Curated by Professor Anitra Nettleton, Paul Davis and Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

13 March – 12 May 2013

This exhibition was drawn from the Wits Art Museum collections and loosely organised around different categories of animals that inhabit the village, countryside, farmlands, bush/ forest, water and air and ones that inhabit multiple contexts. There was an additional category – animals of the imagination - that combines physical elements of various animals (including humans). Both historical and contemporary works were included. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Song for Sekoto 1913 – 2013 - Organised by the Gerard Sekoto Foundation and curated by Mary-Jane Darroll

25 April – 2 June 2013

This exhibition was organised in celebration of the centenary of the artist’s birth. Although Sekoto spent most of his life in exile, he is considered by some to be a ‘Father of South African Art'. This exhibition focused on the relationship between Sekoto’s texts and his paintings and sketches from public and private collections. The exhibition was sponsored by Merrill Lynch, a subsidiary of Bank of America Corporation, with support from BHP Billiton, Business and Arts South Africa, Webber Wentzel and the National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund. It was accompanied by a publication, an education resource and CD of Sekoto's music and Billy and Shorty, Sekoto's book for children. Exhibited in the Street, Core and Mezzanine Galleries

Art/Artefact - Curated by Dr Justine Wintjes and Dr Laura de Becker

15 May – 15 November 2013

This exhibition developed for third year students in art history and fine arts, questioned the differences between artworks and artefacts. It included contemporary and historical works from the African art holdings at WAM. Exhibited in the Strip Gallery

Susan Woolf - Taxi Handsigns: Symbolic Landscapes of Public Culture - Curated by Susan Woolf

12 June – 14 July 2013

The exhibition formed part of Woolf’s submission for a PhD at Wits. The body of work involved the documentation and exploration of the system of informal hand signals that commuters use to access the mini-bus taxi transport in Gauteng. Conceptual artwork, paintings, books, stamps and short films, incorporated taxi hand signs as a symbol of the city of which they are such an integral part.

The exhibition was accompanied by a small publication created by the artist. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Meaning Motion: Tegan Bristow and Nathaniel Stern - Curated by Tegan Bristow and Nathaniel Stern with Fiona Rankin-Smith

12 June – 18 August 2013

How does movement perform meaning? The artworks on this exhibition incorporated cutting edge interfaces, like Microsoft Kinect with custom-made software, so that full-body interactions from public participants made spoken word and sounds, projected animations, texts and drawings transform with their movements. Viewers could explore, experience, and practice making meaning. African artworks,

from WAM’s collection, that rely on the active participation of the ‘viewer’ to generate their final forms were displayed alongside the interactive digital works. Exhibited in the Core and Mezzanine Galleries

Again, and then again, as well, too: Annual Martienssen Prize - Curated by Gabi Ngcobo and Donna Kukama

24 July - 25 August 2013

The annual Wits School of Arts (WSOA) Martienssen Prize Exhibition showcases finalists selected from projects submitted by senior Wits Fine Arts students. 2013’s theme invited students to reconsider their discarded, ignored and forgotten creative endeavours from earlier in the year or previous years of study. This was not an invitation to submit older work but rather to conceptualise new possibilities, approaches and solutions.

Umhlaba 1913 - 2013: Commemorating the 1913 Land Act - Curated by David Goldblatt, Bongi Dhlomo-Mautloa, Pam Warne and Paul Weinberg

29 August - 10 November 2013

The centenary of the Land Act provided an unparalleled opportunity to experience the stories of land in South Africa in ways that had not been told before. The exhibition offered insights into the complexity and contested nature of our landscape. Traversing past and present, works by more than 30 photographers, from collections of 12 archives, sketched the history of land dispossession and its legacies. A publication accompanied the exhibition. Exhibited in the Core, Street and Mezzanine Galleries.

Jeremy Wafer: Survey - Curated by Jeremy Wafer

10 September - 3 November 2013

The exhibition formed part of Wafer’s submission for a PhD at Wits in which in which he reflected on a 30-year art making career which traced, revisited and rearticulated themes and ways of working which have characterized his work. Wafer explores possibilities of materials as both metaphor and structure in works that allude to themes of visibility and invisibility: to the present and the absent, to the inside and the outside. Wafer’s work occupies something of a unique place in South African art, drawing as it does on diverse precedents as minimalism, arte povera and land art but always with a sensitivity to resonances of the local and particular. Accompanied by a publication produced by the artist. Exhibited in Gallery 1

HART Portfolio - Curated by Rory Bester and Joni Brenner

26 October 2013 - January 2014

This exhibition displayed a portfolio of prints created for sale to establish a History of Art student scholarship fund. It featured artists Joni Brenner, David Koloane, Dorothee Kreutzfeldt, Serge Alain Nitegeka, Walter Oltmann and was produced by Talya Lubinsky and Niall Bingham. A set of prints was donated to WAM. Exhibited in the Strip Gallery

NEWWORK13 

12 November - 24 November 2013

NEWWORK13 was an exhibition of work by the graduating class from the Division of Visual Arts (DIVA) at The Wits School of Arts (WSOA) and represented the public debut of a new generation of young artists. This group show was a diverse mix of contemporary and current responses to questions that are informed by a location in Johannesburg, South Africa and the world. The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue produced by WSOA. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Ilan Godfrey - Legacy of Mine - Curated by Ilan Godfrey and Fiona Rankin-Smith

13 November - 15 December 2013

llan Godfrey was the 2012 winner of the Ernest Cole Photographic Award that was established to stimulate creative work in photography in southern Africa. The work explored the consequences of mining on South Africa’s land and people – the need for economic growth versus protection of the environment. Once a symbol of wealth and formidable force in the development of SA, the mine today reveals the scars of neglect and decay, which pose a threat to our society.

The exhibition was accompanied by a major publication, produced by Jacana, and launched at the exhibition opening. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

C.Now - Curated by Dr Laura de Becker

13 November 2013 - 12 January 2014

C.Now showcased artworks acquired by Wits Art Museum in 2013. WAM's collection that numbered close to 10 000 African artworks at the time, continues to grow each year. New acquisitions included classical African art pieces purchased for the Standard Bank African Art Collection and classical and contemporary artworks that were donated during the year by the museum’s generous supporters.

Mapping/Marking - Curated by Dr. Laura de Becker

15 December 2013 - 30 March 2014

The second year of the Wits History of Art course included coursework on landscape representations, maps being one kind of representation that is most concerned with space, place, movement and temporality. Mapping/Marking included maps that are artworks, artworks that are made from maps and maps that categorise art. The images reflected on how mapping and marking the landscape are produced in the process of documenting one’s environment.  Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

Queer and Trans Art-iculations: Collaborative Art for Social Change - Curated by Gabrielle Le Roux, Zanele Muholi, Lerato Bereng, Haley McEwen and Leigh Leyde

15 December 2013 - 30 March 2014

Wits Art Museum, in partnership with the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies and Inkanyiso hosted an exhibition that featured the work of two visual activists: Zanele Muholi [Mo(u)rning] and Gabrielle Le Roux [Proudly African & Transgenderand Proudly Trans in Turkey]. The exhibition coincided with the official launch of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies.

Homosexual and gender non-conforming people are discriminated against, victimised, penalised and criminalised. As insiders and concerned citizens within the LGBTI community who make art, Muholi and Le Roux employ art-activism as a resistance tool and a way to reveal how the LGBTI community exists within society. The works of both artists addressed the complexities, challenges, freedoms and dangers of living beyond the gender binary.

For the duration of the exhibition, facilitators who could speak to the issues represented in the work from lived experience were in attendance. They assisted with queries and provided free impromptu guided tours of the works. WAM also created an interactive space for visitors to respond to the exhibition and share their experiences and thoughts. Exhibited in the Street, Core and Gallery 1 Galleries

WAM! Seeing Stars - Curated by Julia Charlton, Fiona Rankin-Smith and Professor Anitra Nettleton

9 May – 20 August 2012

The inaugural exhibition in the new Wits Art Museum celebrated and highlighted the stars of the WAM collections and some of the many people who have contributed to its development over the last 8 decades. This is the only occasion on which all spaces in the museum were dedicated to a single exhibition. Exhibited in the Core, Street, Mezzanine, Gallery 1 and Strip Galleries

Too Much Information - Curated by Gabi Ncobo and Donna Kukama

23 May 2012 – 30 May 2012

WAM celebrated its first year in the new museum with the launch of an endowment campaign and an auction of contemporary South African art. The week-long display of the works donated for auction culminated in a gala event that raised R5.5 million for the WAM Endowment. Accompanied by an auction catalogue with short texts by CCAA members Professor Nettleton, Dr Paul Davis and Pamela Sunstrum, Lesley Cohen and Dr Laura de Becker from WAM. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Annual Martienssen Prize - Organised by Gabi Ngcobo

24 August – 2 September 2012

The Annual Martienssen Prize exhibition is selected from projects submitted by senior Wits School of Arts (WSOA) Fine Arts students and adjudicated by a panel of judges chosen by both students and staff. The prize, named in honour of Heather Martienssen, the first Professor of Fine Arts at Wits, is awarded to acknowledge artistic excellence in a work produced by a senior student.

Dale Yudelman Ernest Cole Award - Curated by Dale Yudelman

5 September - 25 September 2012

Cape Town-based documentary photographer Dale Yudelman was the winner of the prestigious inaugural Ernest Cole Photographic Award. He exhibited a body of work shot on his cell-phone that he described as ‘vibrant daily reflections, shot in passing, with the simple motivation of noticing what is’. Exhibited in the Mezzanine Gallery

Santu Mofokeng - Chasing Shadows: Thirty Years of Photographic Essays - Curated by Corinne Diserens

12 September – 14 October 2012

This major retrospective exhibition of photographic essays by world renowned South African Santu Mofokeng included photographic essays from the previous thirty years. It was organised by Berlin-based curator Corinne Diserens, in association with the Jeu de Paume in Paris. The exhibition was accompanied by a major publication. Exhibited in Gallery 1

Wits 90 Treasures - Curated by Professor Anitra Nettleton and Rochelle Keene

21 September – 14 October 2012

An exhibition drawn from some of Wits’ extraordinary collections of objects and books was part of the university’s 90th birthday celebrations. Former South African president Nelson Mandela's handwritten notes from the Rivonia Trial, Australopithecus Sediba fossils, 5 000 year old clay tablets from Ur in Mesopotamia, Nuremburg Chronicles dating to 1 493 and an iron lung and were some of the diverse and important items included as well as artworks from WAM holdings. Exhibited in Gallery 1

WAM New Acquisitions

3 October 2012 – 16 February 2013

This exhibition evolved out of a display of linocuts installed as part of the Wits School of Arts printmaking teaching programme and included a range of artworks that had been acquired for the WAM collections through purchase and acquisition.

NEWWORK12

13 November - 25 November 2012

The annual presentation of the work of the graduating 4th year Wits Fine Arts students was held for the first time at the new Wits Art Museum.

The Art of Life and Death (and everything in between) - Curated by Professor Anitra Nettleton

November 2012 – February 2013

Human societies tend to view life and death as an endlessly repeating cycle. Childhood follows birth. Initiation leads to adulthood, senior status and ultimately death. In all cultures, albeit in different ways, these cycles are marked by the making of particular objects, dress and sculptures and by the performance of dances, music and stories. This exhibition presented diverse examples, from WAM’s historical and contemporary collections, selected for their aesthetic appeal.