Khwezi Gule’s face lights up when he talks about his vision for the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG), for which he is chief curator since November 2017. Gule was born in Pietermaritzburg and says as chief curator, he’s experienced challenges and highlights, but his devotion to his vision for the 108-year-old gallery located in Joubert Park in the Johannesburg city centre, never wavered. Gule joined the JAG in 2004 as curator of contemporary collections. He left in 2010 for Soweto Museums before returning in 2017.

He has an educational background in fine arts and has contributed to several international and local publications. 

Some of his highlights over the years have been exhibitions by a German artist and the Ngoma: Art and Cosmology exhibition, among others.

Gule says there are many future exhibitions the JAG has yet to host.

One of the challenges the gallery has been experiencing is the building’s ageing infrastructure, which dates to 1915. 

At certain times when it rains, water gushes into the building, which houses some of South Africa’s rarest artworks. The chief curator has prioritised the building’s repair.

“Hopefully by the time I leave here, whenever that will be, the issue of infrastructure will be sorted,” Gule says.

In addition to hosting exciting exhibitions, he has three other visions for the JAG. It might be a daunting task for one man, but he has a dedicated team that is fighting to keep the JAG alive under difficult circumstances.

Gule says there’s a need to expand the audience and include some of the people who have been neglected before, particularly those in the neighborhood.

There’s also a need to start thinking more creatively about exhibitions and other programmes that speak more directly to the needs of young creatives, especially in the inner city. The third point is that there should be a focus on knowledge production.

“One of the less prominent areas of museum practice is knowledge production. There have been certain areas of knowledge and creative practice that have been neglected. So, we do need to focus more on those areas, do more research, and produce more literature, whether in the form of a brochure, booklet, or educational supplement. We do need to archive some of the artists whose work has not been researched enough,” he says.

He says the more knowledge you produce around the artist, the more prominence they acquire, and that does translate to improved profiles within the art industry and better income for those artists.

Gule says art is a way of understanding history and what people think is important. “Art is a form of knowledge, an important part of human consciousness. It reflects things we talk about, think about, value, and believe in.”

He believes diverse cultures have the potential to elevate certain sections of cities.