Siemon Allen
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Solo exhibitions
Siemon Allen
For the past ten years Siemon Allen has been exploring the image of South Africa through a series of collection projects. His studio practice has evolved out of an interest in how mass-produced items – newspapers, stamps, magazines, records – function as carriers of information and operate in the construction of national identity.
Allen’s most recent collection project, Records, is rooted in an extensive archive of South African audio consisting of over 2500 items including 650 rare shellac discs. The project has generated a series of varied works sourced from this ongoing audio collection including a number of site responsive installation works, a series of large-scale digital prints, and a searchable web-based database that can be viewed at www.flatinternational.org.
For his first solo show in Cape Town at Goodman Gallery, Allen will present Labels – an architectural site-responsive installation – as well as a new series of prints sourced from the audio archive. Labels functions as an historical record, a chronological discography of select labels from Allen’s archive. It is also a kind of visual memorial to South Africa’s rich musical past in that each label represents an individual recording, paying homage to that past visually by naming every artist in the archive. Some names and recordings are well known, but many more are now forgotten.
In time, names and labels will be added to the curtain, but like an asymptote that never reaches its axis, the collection can never be complete. Inasmuch as the archive can never contain all recordings, the curtain cannot represent all artists. The project is but a fragment of history and the curtain is an impossible attempt to capture that history.
Each label functions as both a tribute to decades of South African music and a memorial to those individuals named. Though Allen’s curtain is more celebratory than somber, like Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C, the sheer accumulation of ‘the individual’ transforms the collective into the monumental.
Labels is a site-responsive, architectural installation, a 38 metre long, semi-transparent curtain wall supporting a staggered grid of over 5400 unique images that form a large accessible circular enclosure. Operating as an architectural intervention in the gallery, the work forms a curving gridded wall that meanders through the space. With Labels Allen revisits a theme that has been dominant in his work for many years: the idea of a “space within a space”. The exterior surface of the curtain wall reads as a clean, almost minimalist abstract grid, while the interior becomes a colorful complex pattern of disc shapes with text and markings. Up close one is able to digest the details on each individual label. From afar the textual information begins to lose focus and recede, to be replaced by a tapestry-like colour-field pattern.
The circular structure of the curtain spirals onto itself in such a way that an entrance is created at the point of overlap. Labels are arranged chronologically with the earliest dating from 1901 situated at the opening. As one enters the structure and proceeds through the passageway, the chronology moves forward in time. The visual effect produces in the viewer the experience of being completely enveloped by the labels. As the curtain wall spirals back onto itself it is almost as if the more recent labels – the present – begin to overlap or mask the earlier ones – the past.
Labels has is roots in two installations first shown at Bank Gallery in Durban in 2009. Here Allen exhibited a large grid of digital prints sourced from the labels of Miriam Makeba recordings and a transparent curtain wall displaying record covers inserted to show both front image and back liner notes. For the South African Pavilion at the current 54th Venice Biennale, and in response to the architectural particulars of the Torre di Porta Nuova, Allen constructed a version of Labels that was a 14-metre-tall curtain wall containing 2500 labels. Displayed vertically in a space of enormous height, with a vaulted ceiling and backlit by an arched window, the work resembled a stained-glass window. Labels at Goodman Gallery is more than double the size of the Venice installation. Displayed in a horizontal format and configured to create an accessible interior space, this version also operates as both pattern and place.
The exhibition also features a series of prints sampled from Allen’s music archive. For this new work Allen has scanned minute details, selectively framing fragments of record covers to produce new, sometimes abstract, narratives. This selective framing shifts the images in the prints from their original sources as promotional shots to cinematic moments – sometimes becoming almost painterly.
The four large prints in the series, Santa (the eye), Raj (the purple curtain), Reggie (hands holding a saxophone), and Castle (the crowd) become moments or stations in the exhibition that map a sequence of how one might approach the installation. The eye, the viewer, the stage-curtain, the performer, the audience: all become meditations on performing, exhibiting and viewing.
The detailed scans of the record covers also reveal the language of the original printing process. From afar they appear as readable images, but up close the images dissolve into the abstract grid of the halftone CMYK dot system. The digital images are each printed with Epson HDR ink on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Fine Art paper and mounted on Dibond.
Siemon Allen is a South African artist currently living and working in the United States. He has exhibited extensively both internationally and in South Africa, and his work forms part of several major collections, including the Gordon Schachat Collection, Standard Bank Collection, BHP Billiton, Durban Art Gallery and the Guggenheim Museum New York.
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Biography
Siemon Allen is a South African artist currently living and working in the United States.
Solo Exhibitions
2011 Siemon Allen, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
2010 Imaging South Africa: Collection Projects by Siemon Allen, Anderson Gallery, VCU, Richmond, VA
2009 Imaging South Africa: Records, BANK Gallery, Durban, South Africa
2009 Imaging South Africa: Newspapers | Stamps, Durban Art Gallery, South Africa
2005 Cards III, KZNSA, Durban, South Africa
2005 Cards II, FUSEBOX, Washington, DC
2004 Newspapers (Register), Drake University – Anderson Gallery, Des Moines, IA
2002 Newspapers (Post/Times), FUSEBOX, Washington, DC
2001 STAMP COLLECTION – Imaging South Africa, Hemicycle/Corcoran Museum, Washington, DC
1999 House, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL
1994 Songs for Nella, FLAT Gallery, Durban, South AfricaGroup Exhibitions
2011
Desire, Ideal Narrative in Contemporary South African Art, curated by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Pavilion of South Africa, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Makeba!, curated by Tumelo Mosaka, Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL2010
Records, The Gordon Schachat Collection — Featured Artist, Johannesburg Art Fair, South Africa2009
t.error – your fear is an external object, curated by Attila Hetesi, Anikó Erdosi, Hungarian Cultural Center, New York, NY2008
Disturbance – Contemporary Art from Scandinavia and South Africa, curated by Maria Fidel Regueros and Clive Kellner, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
T.ERROR, curated by Attila Hetesi, Anikó Erdosi, Kunsthalle, Budapest, Hungary
Monomania, curated by Storm Janse van Rensburg, Goodman Gallery Cape, Cape Town, South Africa
Hopeless and Otherwise, curated by Valerie Imus, Southern Exposure, San Francisco
Light Show, curated by Henrietta Hamilton, Robert Fraser & Vaughn Sadie, BANK Gallery, Durban, SA2006
A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, curated by Tumelo Mosaka & Shannon Fitzgerald, Blaffer Gallery, Houston, TX
Chronicle (three-person with Richard Roth & Royce Howes), curated by Richard Roth, The Lab, New York, NY
Other Than Art, curated by Milena Kalinovska, G Fine Art, Washington, DC2005
Enemy Image, curated by Elena Sorkina, Momenta, Brooklyn, NY
Patriot, curated by Cira Pascual Marquina, Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD2004
Freedom Salon, curated by Christina Kukielski & Apsara Diquinzio, Deitch Projects, New York, NY
Notes on Renewed Appropriationisms, curated by Lauri Firstenberg, The Project, Los Angeles, CA
Rear View Mirror, curated by Elizabeth Fisher, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK
Pop-Agenda, FUSEBOX, Washington, DC (Two-person exhibition with Dominic McGill)
A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, curated by Tumelo Mosaka & Shannon Fitzgerald, Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA2003
The American Effect, curated by Larry Rinder, Whitney Museum, New York, NY
A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, curated by Tumelo Mosaka & Shannon Fitzgerald, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MI
Art Positions, Miami/Basel, Miami, FL
ARCO, Madrid, Spain2002
Context & Conceptualism, Artists Space. New York, NY (3 person with Coco Fusco & Melissa Gould)
Intersections, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia2001
Detourism, Renaissance Society, Chicago, Ill, curated by Hamza Walker
FUSEBOX, Washington, DC
After the Diagram, White Box, New York, NY, curated by Lauri Firstenberg & Douglas Cooper2000
Open Circuit, NSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
Translation/Seduction/Displacement, curated by Lauri Firstenberg & John Peffer, Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, Portland, ME
Translation/Seduction/Displacement, White Box, New York, NY, curated by Lauri Firstenberg & John Peffer1999
Import, Goethe Institute (two-person with Markus Wirthmann), Washington, DC1998
Drömmar och Moln, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
Vita 98, Sandton Civic Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa1997
Taking Stock, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, South Africa
2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Graft, curated by Colin Richards, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
Unplugged II, Rembrandt Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa1996
Hitch-Hiker, Generator Art Space, Johannesburg, S. Africa, curated by Clive Kellner
Goethe Institute (two-person with Kendall Buster), Washington, DC1995
Rembrandt Gallery (three-person with Thomas Barry and Jeremy Wafer), Johannesburg1994
Vita Art Now 93, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
First Internotional Theatre of Communication, FLAT Gallery, Durban, South Africa
Quasi-Stella Objects, Jam n’ Co, Durban, South Africa
Swans, FLAT Gallery, Durban, South Africa1993
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) (two person with Greg Streak), JohannesburgCollections
BHP Billiton, South Africa
Durban Art Gallery, South Africa
Gordon Schachat Collection, South Africa
Guggenheim Museum, New York
Standard Bank Collection, South Africa
Selected Articles and Reviews
Allen, Siemon: “Destruction/Construction, Unquiet Community, Sublime Landscape”, Julie Mehretu—City Sitings, catalogue essay, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI, 2007
Allen, Siemon: “Retrospectives”, One Million and Forty-Four Years (and Sixty Three Days), catalogue essay, SMAC Gallery, Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2007
Allen, Siemon: “Time”, The Daily Constitutional, Issue 4, Summer 2007
Allen, Siemon: “Culture is a Weapon of the Struggle”, MFA THESIS EXHIBITION 2005, catalogue essay, Anderson Gallery, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, 2005
Allen, Siemon: “Pictures & Words”, TRIPWIRE – A Journal of Popular Poetry, #6, San Francisco, Fall 2002
Allen, Siemon: “The FLAT Gallery – Conceptual Practices in Durban, South Africa”, essay in AUTHENTIC / EX-CENTRIC – Conceptualism in Contemporary African Art, Salah Hassan & Olu Oguibe (eds), Aperto Exhibition Catalogue, 49th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2001
Allen, Siemon: “A Black Voice”, essay in Grey Areas, Brenda Atkinson & Candice Breitz (eds), Johannesburg, South Africa, 1999
Allen, Siemon: The FLAT Gallery (1993 – 1995), FLAT International, Washington, USA, 1999
Amory, Claudia: “Artsites 96”, The Washington Review, June 1996
Bonetti, David: “Comments on Culture”, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 14, 2003
Bowers, J: “Without Borders”, City Paper, Baltimore, April 2005
Buster, Kendall; Allen, Siemon (eds): A General Guide to South African Stamps & History,
FLAT International, Washington, USA, 2002Cahan, Susan: “A Fiction of Authenticity”, Art South Africa, vol. 2 issue 2, Summer 2003
Carrier, David: “A Fiction of Authenticity”, ARTFORUM, March 2004
Cassel, Valerie: “ Beyond Boundaries: Rethinking Contemporary Art Exhibitions”, Art Journal, Spring 2000
Cattelan, Maurizio; Gioni, Massimiliano; Subotnick, Ali (eds): CHARLEY 01: New York, 2002
Cotter, Holland: “Translation/Seduction/Displacement”, The New York Times, March 24, 2000
Cotter, Holland: “Enemy Image”, The New York Times, October 7, 2005
Dawson, Jessica: “Where Visa are not Needed”, The Washington Post, April 11, 2002
Dixon, Glen, “When History Throws Us an Endless Curve,” The Washington Post, Apr. 17, 2004
Enwezor, Okwui (ed): Trade Routes History and Geography, 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, exhibition catalogue, 1997
Erdosi, Aniko: t.error—your fear is an external object, exhibition catalogue, Mucsarnok Kunsthalle, Budapest, 2008
Firstenberg, Lauri: “Notes on Renewed Appropriationisms”, PARKETT, # 67, 2003
Firstenberg, Lauri: “Siemon Allen’s Stamp Collection”, NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art, #16/17, Fall/Winter 2002
Firstenberg, Lauri: “Siemon Allen”, Atlantica, Spring 2002
Firstenberg, Lauri: “Making Headlines”, Art/South Africa, Vol. 1 Issue 2, Johannesburg, Summer 2002
Firstenberg, Lauri; Peffer, John (eds): “Translation/Seduction/Displacement” (catalogue), New York, 2000
Fisher, Elizabeth: Rear View Mirror, exhibition catalogue, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK, 2004
Fitzgerald, Shannon; Mosaka, Tumelo (eds): “A Fiction of Authenticity – Contemporary Africa Abroad”, exhibition catalogue, Contemporary Art Museum St.Louis, 2003
Garcia, Mariano: “La Zaragozana Cira Pascual Cuestiona el Patriotismo en el Corazón de EE UU”, Heraldo de Aragón, Zaragoza, June 9, 2005
Geers, Kendell: “Social Critique from Young Talent”, Business Day, Johannesburg, Nov. 1993
Geers, Kendell, Sophie Perryer, and Nikos Papaastergiadis. Intersections—South African Art from the BHP Billiton Collection, exhibition catalogue, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia, BHP Billiton Collection SA, 2002.
Gilbert, Chris: “Exile Painters”, 64 Magazine, May 2000
Gilbert, Chris: “Siemon Allen: Internal Affairs”, Sculpture, Vol. 18 No.10, Dec. 1999
Gopnick, Blake: “The View From Afar”, The Washington Post, August 24, 2003
Gopnick, Blake: “Delving into the Notion of Patriotism”, The Washington Post, May 31, 2005
Heartney, Eleanor: “America, Real and Imagined”, Art in America, September 2003
Hoffberg, Judith (ed): “Newspapers”, book review in Umbrella, Vol. 27 #4, Southern California, Dec. 2004
Israel, Nico: “Translation/Seduction/Displacement”, ARTFORUM, May 2000
Jacobson, Louis: “Cards”, Washington City Paper, June 17, 2005
Keylock, Miles: “The Art of Obsession”, Mail & Guardian, Cape Town, August 22, 2008
Kistler, Ashley (ed): “Imaging South Africa — Collection Projects by Siemon Allen”, VCUarts, Richmond, 2010
Knode, Marilu: “Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis”, Tema Celeste, 2003
Levin, Kim: “A Foreign Affair”, The Village Voice, July 30-August 5, 2003
Machen, Peter: “Conversation of Objects”, Weekend Witness, South Africa, August 13, 2005
Machen, Peter: “Bathed in Light”, South African Art Times, Cape Town, Issue 1, Vol. 3, February 2008
Machen, Peter: “The Collector”, Weekend Witness, South Africa, March 21, 2009
McCarthy, Jena, Reviews, ArtSouthAfrica, Vol. 4, Issue 2, Summer 2005
McNatt, Glenn: “Politics, Art Make Strange Bedfellows”, The Baltimore Sun, April 26, 2005
Nakamura, Marie-Pierre: “C’est Leur Amérique”, Art Actuel, #28, Paris, France, September-October, 2003
Pascual Marquina, Cira: “Newspapers,” exhibition brochure, Anderson Gallery, Drake University, Des Moines, IA, Jan. 2003.
Peffer, John: “Mistaken Media”, http://home.icon.co.za/~ersatz/mistaken_media.htm, June 2005
Pierre, Amanda: “‘Newspapers’ Looks at How People Are Informed,” The Des Moines Register, Jan. 18, 2004.
Richards, Colin: “The Thought Is the Thing.” Art/South Africa [Johannesburg, SA] 1, issue 2 (Summer 2002)
Richards, Colin: “Curating Contradiction: Graft in the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale”, in THE GLOBAL ART WORLD: Audiences, Markets, and Museums, Hans Belting & Andrea Buddensieg (eds),
Hantje Cantz, Germany, 2009
Rinder, Larry (ed): The American Effect: Global Perspectives on the United States, 1990–2003, exhibition catalogue, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2003
Risatti, Howard, “Siemon Allen/Dominic McGill, ” Artforum, Summer 2004
Schwendener, Martha: “Critics Picks”, Artforum (online), February 10, 2002
Smith, Roberta: “Context & Conceptualism”, The New York Times, February 22, 2002
Smith, Roberta: “Caution: Angry Artists at Work”, The New York Times, August 27, 2004
Stupart, Linda: “Monomania”, ArtSouthAfrica, Vol. 7, Issue 2, Summer 2008
Sudheim, Alex: “Squirrel Artist”, Mail & Guardian, Durban, August 5, 2005
Sudheim, Alex: “The Outsider Insider”, Mail & Guardian, Durban, February 27, 2009
Sudheim, Alex: “The Activist Artist: Dislocation and Relocation in the Work of Siemon Allen”, ArtSouthAfrica, Vol. 7, Issue 3, Summer 2009
Thorson, Alice: “ A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad”, ArtNews, April 2004
Van Gelder, Lawrence: “National Image”, The New York Times, June 26, 2001
Vascellaro, Jessica: “America’s Image as Seen by Artists Here and Abroad”, The Associated Press, August 4, 2003
Weil, Benjamin: “Out of Time-South African Art”, Flash Art, Jan-Feb. 1995
Weil, Rex: “Siemon Allen”, ArtNews, October 2005
Walker, Hamza: “Detourism”, The Renaissance Society, November 2001
Williamson, Sue: South African Art Now, Collins Design, Harper Collins, New York, 2009
Williamson, Sue: Artthrob, artthrob.co.za (online), July 2001
Zervigon, Andres: “The Weave of Memory: Siemon Allen’s Screen in Postapartheid South Africa”, Art Journal, Spring 2002
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