Oliewenhuis show opens April 16

Oliewenhuis Art Museum in Bloemfontein will open “Àṣẹ: Grounded in Being, Rising in Thought” on Thursday, April 16, with the show curated by the museum’s Art Museum Guides. (art.co.za) The opening is scheduled for 18:00, the exhibition runs through June 16, and a walkabout is set for Friday, April 17, at 11:00. The show is listed for the Reservoir, the museum’s below-ground gallery space. (art.co.za) (southafrica.net) Oliewenhuis’s March 2026 Human Rights Day press material described Àṣẹ as a Yoruba philosophical and spiritual principle tied to “the power to make things happen” and said the exhibition is organized through five interconnected themes. The museum said those themes link paintings, prints, photographs and sculptures to questions of human experience, technology and social change. (nationalmuseumpublications.co.za) The curatorial setup shifts attention away from a single named curator and toward a cohort of guides who normally handle tours, visitor questions, education activities and exhibition support. Oliewenhuis’s current staff page lists five Art Museum Guides on the museum team. (nationalmuseum.co.za 1) (nationalmuseum.co.za 2) That model is not new at Oliewenhuis. In 2023, the museum mounted “transition • liminality • adaptation,” a show curated by the 2022 to 2023 Art Museum Guides and Presidential Employment Stimulus Programme interns using works from the permanent collection and the Art Bank of South Africa’s contemporary collection. (ofm.co.za) Oliewenhuis itself is a South African art museum in a neo-Dutch mansion on Grant’s Hill that was completed in 1941, converted into a museum in 1985 and officially opened as an art museum in 1989. Its permanent collection is devoted to works by South African artists. (nationalmuseum.co.za 1) (nationalmuseum.co.za 2) For visitors, the museum says admission to the main building, exhibitions and gardens is free. It lists visiting hours as 08:00 to 17:00 on weekdays and 09:00 to 16:00 on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays, with parking charged at R10 per vehicle. (nationalmuseum.co.za) The next marker is April 16 at 18:00, when the guides’ curatorial work moves from announcement to opening night in the Reservoir. (art.co.za)