carved and painted wood

Artwork date: 1992
Signature details: sculpture signed and dated; dome signed, dated and inscribed with the series title

(1)

dome: 57 x 202 cm (diameter); sculpture: 180 x 85 x 61 cm

Notes:

After commencing his career as a full-time artist in 1988, Joachim Schönfeldt was chosen as one of the artists for the first South African pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1993, the country’s first participation since the days of apartheid isolationism. This piece, titled Saw, was created in 1992 as part of Schönfeldt’s on-going series of various works produced under the title Curios and Authentic Works of Art[1], which has since included other sculptures, drawings and prints investigating questions of authenticity in relation to the production of African arts and craft.Constructed out of eucalyptus wood, the central sculpture, a three-headed cow, is a recurring figure within Schönfeldt’s work, which reflects an attempt to create a uniquely African mythological figure. The cow sits within a kind of echo chamber, catching the sounds made beneath the dome and reflecting them back to the sculpture beneath. This mimics the visual conversation between the central figure and the figures above it, attached to the edges of the dome. The inscriptions on the inside of the dome give a clue to the conversation that these figures might be having and offer some substance to Schönfeldt’s approach to the interaction between the marginalised African continent and Europe within the context of his participation in the 1993 Biennale.The inscriptions make reference to what Schönfeldt refers to as “I veri mercanti di Venezia”, the “true merchants of Venice” – African traders whose long history of interaction with the Italian merchant state extends back over centuries and has long been erased from official histories of the city. A further inscription salutes these merchants using the derogatory Italian slang phrase “Vu Cumpra”, a term initially derived from African merchants’ mispronunciation of the phrase “Vuio comprare?” meaning “Want to buy?”, and now used as a slang term for hawkers in general. A third inscription celebrates Venice’s “Fratelli Africani”, or “African brothers” and ties the piece together as a celebration of the long history of interaction between the continent and Africa, which also asks those who interact with it to reconsider and embrace this history – a sentiment particularly poignant in this era of refugee migrations and exclusions.

Tymon Smith

Sources:

[1]Interview with the artist April 2019