NIROX Sculpture Park

NIROX occupies about fifteen hectares of landscaped grounds with lakes, lawns and indigenous bush in the Cradle of Humankind, and it works as both a sculpture park and a residency where artists come to make work on site. The permanent and rotating pieces are large - works by Serge Alain Nitegeka, Angus Taylor, William Kentridge and international artists placed in the landscape rather than in rooms - and the walk between them is the experience. Each winter the park hosts a major sculpture exhibition that fills the grounds and draws the Johannesburg art world out for the day, along with concerts and food. The wider setting matters: this is the fossil-bearing dolomite country where Sterkfontein and the other hominin sites are, so the sculpture sits in a landscape that carries several million years of human origins beneath it.

Highlights

• The placed sculpture - large works by South African and international artists in open landscape.
• The residency - artists making work on site rather than shipping it in.
• The winter exhibition - an annual show that fills the grounds with new pieces.
• The Cradle setting - a sculpture park above fossil-bearing hominin country.

When to go

April to September; the big exhibition is in winter. Half a day. Weekends only, or by arrangement.

Practical notes

It is not open daily - weekends and event days, so check before driving out. Entry is ticketed and the restaurant is priced accordingly. The grounds involve a fair amount of walking. Winter mornings on the highveld are cold.

Nearby

Sterkfontein Caves and Maropeng are minutes away; Johannesburg is south-east.