JOACHIM SCHöNFELDT
Rooke Gallery is pleased to have curated an event- and site-specific performance by acclaimed South African artist, Joachim Schönfeldt. Created for the 2011 South African Art Fair, Guild Flag features an instrumental performance of the South African anthem on a rock guitar as a set of symbolic flags are raised on one of two flagpoles in the Rooke Gallery's stand.
Guild Flag continues Schönfeldt's exploration of historic events in the recent and distant past through the material objects and customs associated with them. Of particular interest to Schönfeldt are the often-overlooked contributions made by the guilds of craftsmen responsible for creating these artefacts.
Please return to this page in the near future for more information and to view a video of the performance.
Joachim Schönfeldt was born in Pretoria, but was raised and completed his schooling in Namibia. After graduating from the University of the Witwatersrand in the early 1980s, he worked as an advisor, curator and researcher in African art before becoming a full-time artist in 1988.
Schönfeldt has exhibited in New York, San Francisco and Massachusetts in the States and in Vancouver in Canada. He has also exhibited in Paris, Berlin, Rotterdam, Lisbon, Porto, Glasgow, Turin, Umea, Sierre, Graz, Salzburg, and Copenhagen in Europe. He represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale and at the Sao Paulo Biennale and participated in both Johannesburg Biennales. In 2008 he participated in the Gwangju Biennale.
He has worked with curators such as: Okwui Enwezor (director of Documenta xi), Jean-Hubert Martin (past director of the Venice Biennale), Peter Weibel (past director of the Steirischer Herbst in Graz, Austria), Lauri Firstenberg (Independent curator in New York), Joao Fernandes (curator at the Seralves Foundation in Porto, Portugal), Julia Charlton (Wits Art Galleries), Lioba Reddeker (Basis Wien) and Rory Bester (independent curator, Johannesburg).
In 2001 he was short-listed for the Daimler Chrysler Award. His work is represented in various private and public collections, like MoMa, NY, The Smithsonian, Hangart-7-Sammlung, University of the Witwatersrand Art Gallery, Johannesburg and National Gallery, Cape Town.
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