About

Guns & Rain is a Johannesburg-based gallery for contemporary African art, with a strong local and international programme of exhibitions and collaborations. Founded in 2014 as one of Africa’s first online galleries, Guns & Rain was established to address the under-representation of African art online and globally. Today, the gallery works with over twenty emerging artists from five African countries and is known both for its leaning towards social and political themes, and for identifying new talent. 

Guns & Rain has produced regular exhibitions in Johannesburg since 2015 and has had a physical space in Parkhurst since 2018. In addition to our local exhibition and fairs programme, the gallery participates in  international art fairs and collaborates with multiple partner galleries and dealers across Africa, Europe and the United States. Guns & Rain has helped launch several artists into international careers and has helped place African art in dozens of collections around the world.

The gallery is a member of the African Art Galleries Association (AAGA) and the Association of Women Art Dealers (AWAD). We also collaborate with universities and have hosted artists and multiple interns from the University of Johannesburg and University of Oxford.

The name ‘Guns & Rain’ comes from the work of South African-born British anthropologist and playwright David Lan, who wrote about guerrillas and spirit mediums in Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle. Lan’s work is concerned with culture, identity, land, struggle, change, and other important African themes that also inform the curatorial focus and programme of the gallery.

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