Featured Artist 2010: Siemon Allen
Presented by: gordonschachatcollection
Siemon Allen
W www.siemonallen.org
For the past eight years Siemon Allen has been exploring the image of South Africa through a series of collection projects. The most current collection, an archive of South African audio, is made up of over 2000 items including 500 rare 78 rpm shellac discs. Records (2009) is a series of 12 large format print on velvet archival paper selected and scanned from the larger audio collection. The scans of the records produce remarkable detail capturing not only the grooves but also the accumulated historic traces of scratches and damage that speak to the memory of the object. It is significant that though these prints are considered by Allen to be part of his audio collection and speak to the primacy of music in South African cultural history, they are silent.
Artist’s biography
Lives and works in Richmond, Virginia, USA.
Solo exhibitions:
Imaging South Africa: Records, BANK Gallery, Durban (2009)
Imaging South Africa: Newspapers/Stamps, Durban Art Gallery (2009)
Stamp Collection – Imaging South Africa, Hemicycle/Corcoran Museum, Washington DC, USA (2001)
Group exhibitions:
Disturbance – Contemporary Art from Scandinavia and South Africa, Johannesburg Art Gallery (2008)
Enemy Image, Momenta, Brooklyn, NY, USA (2005)
Notes on Renewed Appropriationisms, The Project, Los Angeles, USA (2004)
The American Effect, Whitney Museum, New York, USA (2003)
A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, USA (2003)
Context & Conceptualism, Artists Space, New York, USA (2002)
2nd Johannesburg Biennale (1997)
Collections:
Guggenheim Museum, New York; Durban Art Gallery; BHP Billiton Collection; Standard Bank Collection and the gordonschachtcollection
Siemon Allen, Records, 2009, Epson Ultrachrome HDR archival ink on Hahnemühle Museum Etching Fine Art Paper and mounted on Sintra, 200 x 200 cm, Set of 12 digital prints; edition of 2 + artist proof
Set includes: Better, City Special, Sunshine, Zon-o-phone, Cape To Cairo Star, Church, His Master’s Voice, Tempo, Envee, Columbia, Quality, Rave.
Better, Rave and Tempo were first shown in the exhibition Imaging South Africa: Records|Newspapers|Stamps at BANK Gallery, Durban, 2009. South African Edition collection of the gordonschachatcollection.