Siemon Allen

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Siemon Allen (* in Durban ) is a South African installation artist who lives and works in the United States .

biography

Siemon Allen studied art at the Technikon Natal Institute in Durban and graduated with a master's degree in 1999. During this time he also met his current wife, an American, and later moved with her to the United States, where he now teaches as a visiting professor at the Faculty of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond .

During his time in South Africa, Allen was a founding member of the FLAT Gallery, which existed in Durban from 1993 to 1995, as part of an artist initiative.

Allen's work was shown at the 2nd Johannesburg Biennale as part of the "Graft" exhibition; Today it is represented in the collections of the Durban Art Gallery, the Guggenheim Museum in New York , the Standard Bank Collection and numerous other private and public collections worldwide.

Work and way of working

Siemon Allen is a passionate collector and archivist of South African ephemera , which he processes in his large-scale visual and information didactic installations. These works are titled as "collection projects" with which the artist has explored the concept of identity formation through and at a distance as well as the image of South Africa in general.

Allen systematically accumulates mass-produced printed material for these installations, which he then catalogs and exhibits. The working process is not unlike that of an archivist. As a South African living abroad, Allen is primarily interested in how a country is seen from outside and to what extent it participates in the formation of the image of itself. In the early 2000s he came across a website of the South African government, which made a heavily promoted call for positive "branding" for South Africa abroad and also promoted the recruitment of non-government South Africans living abroad to serve as " ambassadors " of the country should occur. Allen's installations expose this essentialist idea of ​​a South African "brand" and at the same time provide a kind of aid to this branding .

The artist's latest project is the creation of an extensive, internet-based archive of audio documents on the history of South Africa. The exhibition entitled "Records" resulting from this archive was shown in South Africa in 2009 and in the USA in 2010.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions (selection)

  • 2010 Imaging South Africa: Collection Projects by Siemon Allen, Anderson Gallery, VCU, Richmond, VA, USA
  • 2009 Imaging South Africa: Records, BANK Gallery, Durban, South Africa
  • 2005 Cards II, FUSEBOX, Washington, DC, USA
  • 2004 Newspapers (Register), Drake University - Anderson Gallery, Des Moines, IA, USA
  • 2002 Newspapers (Post / Times), FUSEBOX, Washington, DC, USA
  • 2001 STAMP COLLECTION - Imaging South Africa, Hemicycle / Corcoran Museum, Washington, DC, USA
  • 1999 House, Gallery 400, Chicago, IL, USA
  • 1994 Songs for Nella, FLAT Gallery, Durban, South Africa

Group exhibitions (selection)

  • 2011 Desire, Ideal Narrative in Contemporary South African Art, South African Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
  • 2010 Records, The Gordon Schachat Collection - Featured Artist, Johannesburg Art Fair, South Africa
  • 2009 t.error - your fear is an external object, Hungarian Cultural Center, New York, NY, USA
  • 2008 Disturbance - Contemporary Art from Scandinavia and South Africa, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
  • 2008 T.ERROR, Art Gallery, Budapest, Hungary
  • 2008 Hopeless and Otherwise, curated by Valerie Imus, Southern Exposure, San Francisco, USA
  • 2006 A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, Blaffer Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
  • 2006 Other Than Art, G Fine Art, Washington, DC, USA
  • 2005 Enemy Image, Brooklyn, NY, USA
  • 2004 Freedom Salon, New York, NY, USA
  • 2004 Notes on Renewed Appropriationisms, The Project, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • 2004 Rear View Mirror, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge, UK
  • 2004 A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, Miller Gallery, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
  • 2003 The American Effect, Whitney Museum, New York, NY, USA
  • 2003 Art Positions, Miami / Basel, Miami, FL, USA
  • 2003 ARCO, Madrid, Spain
  • 2002 Context & Conceptualism, Artists Space. New York, NY, USA
  • 2002 Intersections, RMIT Gallery, Melbourne, Australia
  • 2001 After the Diagram, White Box, New York, NY, USA
  • 2000 Open Circuit, NSA Gallery, Durban, South Africa
  • 1999 Import, Goethe Institute (two-person with Markus Wirthmann), Washington, DC
  • 1998 Drömmar och Moln, Kulturhuset, Stockholm, Sweden
  • 1997 Taking Stock, Johannesburg Stock Exchange, South Africa
  • 1997 2nd Johannesburg Biennale, Graft, South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
  • 1996 Hitch-Hiker, Generator Art Space, Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 1995 Rembrandt Gallery (three-person with Thomas Barry and Jeremy Wafer), Johannesburg, South Africa
  • 1994 Vita Art Now 93, Johannesburg Art Gallery, South Africa
  • 1993 Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) (two person with Greg Streak), Johannesburg, South Africa

literature

  • Anderson Gallery (Drake University). Siemon Allen - Newspapers: a project by Siemon Allen. Anderson Gallery, Drake University, 2004.
  • Allen, Siemon. Siemon Allen - A fiction of authenticity: contemporary Africa abroad. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2003.
  • Allen, Siemon. Siemon Allen - Siemon Allen, 1993-1999, 1999.
  • Allen, Siemon. Siemon Allen - The Flat Gallery: a documentation and critical examination of an informal art organization in Durban. Flat International, 1999.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Allen's profile on the Virginia University homepage
  2. ↑ Flat project on the artist's homepage
  3. ↑ Homepage of the "Flat International" project
personal data
SURNAME Allen, Siemon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African installation artist
DATE OF BIRTH 20th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Durban