Joachim SCHÖNFELDT (b. 1958)
Mtunzini District
2000
Oil & varnish on embossed Oregon pine – door
72 x 73 x 4 cm
Long Shadows (Yellow)
digital print
2006
edition A/P 1/2
19.7 x 28.5 cm
Untitled (Castle) and (Face 5)
1997
oil paint & varnish on 300gm Hannemuhle paper
78 x 49 cm
Untitled (Face 5)
1997
mixed media on paper
47 x 78 cm
BIOGRAPHY
Joachim Schönfeldt was born in Pretoria and grew up in Namibia.
He holds a Fine Art degree from the University of Witwatersrand.
Schönfeldt began his career in art at Meneghelli Holdings—where he worked as an advisor, curator, and researcher specialising in old African art—and became a full-time artist in 1988. He spent a few years in Italy, before setting up a studio in Johannesburg in 1991.
He is known for his signature vision of African iconography. Schönfeldt’s starting point is the African art object and the shifting context of the cultural artifact. His work investigates how objects intervene in discourse, whether they are used in verbal narratives or animated by language itself. Negating the anthropological approach to the unique artifact as a fragment of the past, he uses symbols from the iconography of a reimagined Pan-African identity, in one instance modifying animals’ heads to signify the unity of a metaphorical nationalism.
His paintings, prints, and sculptures have been featured in many group and solo exhibitions around the world, including in New York, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin, Lisbon, and Copenhagen. Works by Schönfeldt were also presented at the Venice Biennale in 1993 and 2015.