Artist: Joachim Knill
Swiss Artist Joachim Knill has lived in the U.S since 1983 and currently lives in Hannibal, Missouri. He presents a suite of charmingly strange paintings displayed in a custom-made packing crate museum. The installation, titled “National Treasure” comes complete with an imaginary backstory with vague political and social messages.
Knill writes: National Treasure, his portable caravan mini-museum-crate is now dropped onto the streets of cities to be shared, viewed, and consumed by humans unfamiliar with this foreign cultural artifact.
This installation is a statement on how cultures become objectified and turned into commodities, divorced from their original context and valued for their parts regardless of origin, history, or cultural value. His commodities are beautifully painted oil portraits of stuffed animals like the ones Knill collected as a child.
According to Knill’s website manifesto, selling the individual paintings from the mysterious mini-museum scatters them in “new, unrelated settings” thereby actualizing the aforementioned divorcing process. The purchasers may or may not understand the concept, Knill said. But it doesn’t matter. If they just want to take home a painting of, say, a hippopotamus, they’re still players in the performance aspect of the exhibit.
VIDEO interview with artist Joachim Knill.
Joachim was born and grew up in Switzerland, the artist currently lives in Hannibal, Missouri. He completed a diploma and BFA at The School Of The Museum Of Fine Arts in Boston Massachusetts working in video, film, photography, sculpture, and painting. His wide field of study has allowed him to free of the limitations found in any single art form. His current work with 20×30 Polaroids combines photography with sculpture, installation, and lighting. Many galleries, museums, and international competitions have exhibited his work. For several years Joachim Knill taught film at the SMFA, and Emerson College in Boston, and he has offered a 20×30 Polaroid workshop at the SMFA. Since 1995 Joachim Knill has been exhibiting in many prestigious art festivals nationwide.
(Source: “National Treasure” is published with permission of the artist. All artwork is copyright © 2005-2018 Joachim Knill – all rights reserved by the artist.)
