Welcome the Johannesburg Art Gallery
I feel like I'm really supposed to love this gallery, but somehow the only emotions that will attach to this place is of some fondness, some disappointment, sprinkled with a few adrenaline drops of arriving, staying and leaving safely.
Like a grown up revisiting a childhood hang out I felt sure that this place used to much bigger than now, maybe blame my Lourve in Paris visit for this. Having said that, I think the gallery is a nice size, not overwhelming like the Lourve, where after the first 40 min your eyes just start glazing over anyway.
The gallery is right next to Joubert Park, with a bit of sketchy reputation.. (well that and the entire Braamfontein area) all the more reason to feel proud of yourself for travelling through such obstructions in the quest of appreciating fine art. Good on you... good on me for going despite being a little freaked out.
The gallery has an almost adorable collection of famous Artist's work, nothing you've ever seen on Cezanne and Dali postcards, but hey, it's here and it's cool in that way. They also have work by Rodin, Van Gogh and Monet. Cool right?
Why I think it's cool and reasons to go:
-It's free, totally free... budget travellers rejoice!
... o you need more reasons than that?? okay
-the Dali lobster phone
-Some really impressive South African Artist art that will make you feel all proud and stuff
These paintings are made from old plastic bags, no kidding.
-Changing Art, in the sense that 90% of their collection is in storage so you can see something different every time.
-Chances are very good you'll have the entire gallery to yourself.
-I like the building, parts of it was built in the early 1900's... so (don't freak out Belinda) it's historically cool.
-Art is good for the soul
And the not so cool part:
-It's a scary part of the city... (traffic rules don't apply here by the way)
-At the time of this going online the temporary exhibition was about sexual harassment and sexual offenders... not exactly the happy escape I wanted.
-A little depressing that no else ventures out here.
In Matric we had to analyse this painting in our final paper, I remember using the word macabre a lot... macabre what a art word, in fact I struggle to describe most art any other way. This is however one of my favourite paintings in the gallery.
Speaking of macabre...
This isn't exactly part of the exhibitions, I being super intelligent (spells intelligent wrong) think it's for schoolkids to do some art after they've seen the exhibitions. But what would stop somebody from calling this art? this table that is... Some guy named Andy called a bunch of Campbell soup tins art and he was right, wasn't he?
I've read somewhere that the gallery might be moved to Newtown (on the Jozi tourist list!), it's sad that they will loose the building but it might be the best.
Then once again the art can fit in with other arty things like jazz and cool people, all this is apparently in Newtown, I'm still to go see for myself.
..
Brilliant tips:
-Make sure you know exactly where you're going, not a fun place to drive around in circles
-The parking may look closed but there is a guard on duty.
-Give about one to two hours, and again go in the early afternoon to avoid city traffic.
-Closed on Mondays
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