For the past ten years Siemon Allen has establish an autonomous language for encoding visual forms of knowledge and memory.
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. His new exhibition draws from this archive to create a chronological discography of select record labels. Titled Labels, it comprises an architectural site-responsive installation, as well as a new series of prints sourced from the audio archive. Through these works Allen highlights how labels functions as an historical record. A visual memorial to South Africa’s rich musical past, it highlights how sheer accumulation of “the individual” has the potential to transform the collective into the monumental. As always Allen’s obsessive approach, unique aesthetic and a ceaseless unfolding of connections and possibilities, transcends nostalgia. Rather, like all the best music, Labels contains its own everlasting present.
Goodman Gallery Cape, 3rd Floor Fairweather House, 176 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock, Cape Town. Until October 22. Tel: 021 462 7573/4. Website: www.goodmangallerycape.com.