Siemon Allen's Stamp Collection

SI EMON ALLEN' S STAiflP fiOHECTION LAURI FIRSTENBERG A r t i s t s S p a c e , C o n c e p t s a n d C o n c e p t u a l i s m . J a n u a r y 1 2 - M a r c h 2 , 2 0 0 2 . S i e m o n A l l e n , S t a m p C o l l e c t i o n , d i m e n s i o n s v a r i a b l e , 2 0 0 2 c o u r t e s y o f t h e A r t i s t 6 6 • N k a J o u r n a l o f C o n t e m p o r a r y A f r i c a n A r t l >IHMI^-l))))lllWI:IHlll[']['I'L'M: 111> I ? O i ! ! i i i n i r n K «? i i u ^ J k i t i k m n s t p a t r i o t . "Et-n u»rn n i M en umc niuedtr. oprt*t u»*i* ifcigen \cflcngri wnrikti in tui Ijnd d»t u nil- g W ^ N « M M M l | I M taal het rw\ i J ^ j ^ c Pair otte liou vas, en klou vts, an die Huliam t a a f ^ dn^kj^g mens* vmd die Ef-geise damg moo»7ell|^>rtui'e gaat net so L,$teeks pSrde te Ice^JR'lMtHHairiHMIIffinr^ twig. Ons nfr^hhj met ons "Patriot" an die wereld , dat oris wel cfc-'enrwil^tn taal het waartn ons kan Jj, dit is dit- luaiTi^teBfcpn=> blad! Ken beter naam ooit kry nie, flukse veTiWen so vvil ons ens koe'rar!^!!f5r™nijak . kJein, msar fiuks. Op die 1$ van idern>aand kan julle een be«oek i die "Patriot" vrrwag, en ek it *eker, hoc mecr julle tioni leei, hoe liev»er julle hom *al kry En hoe nicer intrki rijjis jU )le ver hom vil heiorgc. boe nicer jul julle dankbaaiVid u l betoon' l.k t c : //AVit in' dti r u t I ./'.'• m;- in rf*e jutar' MV* j / ;m/// w w J r , 1 Ltt.r »* NT (/if " Patriot,'' J it mar 5' fitting* in J tf jtua' M y n %kci>\+-N' \*at is 5 firlingi M r ecu " \fri1 J f * j n S i e m o n A l l e n , S t a m p C o l l e c t i o n , d i m e n s i o n s v a r i a b l e , 2 0 0 2 , c o u r t e s y o f t h e A r t i s t J o u r n a l o f C o n t e m p o r a r y A f r i c a n A r t highly charged in terms of cultural, racial and ethnic identifications, plagued by the enactment of myth. Allen's work is consciously engaged with the canonical and constructed notion of whiteness' equation with citizenship, and its authoritative and official iconography which has fueled artistic gestures on the part of a younger generation of artists, vacillating between a hyper turn to bodily representation and a shift towards the erasure of the figure. Allen's work marks a move towards personal reconciliation with a traumatic history by carefully memoralizing the past before proposing new lexicons for the future. Negotiating legacies of practitioners such as William Kentridge's historicism , the aggressive conceptualism of Kendell Geers, the subtle linguistic meditations of Willem Boshoff, and the revisualizions of South African subjectivity by David Goldblatt and Santu Mofokeng, how does a younger generation respond? While some collect and appropriate Afrikanner paraphernalia, Allen's excavation of cultural memory is reckoned with on personal terms, turning to items from his white suburban youth — Hardy Boy books...