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Allan deSouza

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This article is about the artist. For the politician, see Alan DeSousa.
Allan deSouza
Born1958 (age 65–66)
Nairobi, Kenya
EducationGoldsmiths College
Alma materBath Academy of Art,
University of California, Los Angeles
EmployerUniversity of California, Berkeley
SpouseYong Soon Min
Websiteallandesouza.com

Allan deSouza (born 1958) is a Kenyan-born American photographer, art writer, professor, and multi-media artist.[1] He is of Indian descent and his work deals with issues of migration, relocation, and international travel. He works in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was the Chair of the Department of Art Practice at the University of California, Berkeley from 2015 - 2022.

Early life and education

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Allan deSouza was born in Nairobi, Kenya,[2] to Indian parents originally from Goa, India.[3] His parents had left Goa while it existed as a Portuguese colony.[3] During the upheaval following Kenyan independence in 1962 when he was age 7, his family emigrated to London, England.[3]

He was educated in both the UK and the United States.[4] DeSouza attended Goldsmiths College in London, and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Bath Academy of Art in 1983.[5] He moved to the United States in 1992, participating in the Whitney Independent Study Program in New York and earning a master's in photography from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1997.[6]

He was married to artist Yong Soon Min in 1992, whom he has collaborated with on artwork.[7][8]

Career

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He has written about contemporary art, contributing to publications such as the Los Angeles Times, X-TRA Contemporary Art Quarterly, Wolgan Art Monthly, and Third Text Journal, and has been invited as a lecturer to museums and universities across the globe, including Pratt Institute, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Seika University in Kyoto, Japan, and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden.

DeSouza served as an Associate Professor and Chair of the New Genres department of the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) from 2006 until 2012, when he joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley as head of the Photography Department. In 2011, he was invited by The Phillip’s Collection to create in response to Lawrence’s Migration Series. The resulting artwork, The World Series, was subsequently featured in a solo exhibition at the museum along with Lawrence’s works.[9] In 2012, deSouza was invited to participate in the Rockefeller Foundation Arts and Literary Arts Residency at the Bellagio Center in Lake Como, Italy.

DeSouza's work has been featured at museums and galleries including The Phillips Collection in Washington, DC, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York,[10] Fowler Museum in Los Angeles,[11] Blaffer Art Museum in Houston,[12] Krannert Art Museum in Champaign,[13] Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris,[14] the Museum for African Art in New York, Mori Art Museum in Japan,[15] Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Sweden, Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands,[16] Museo Tamayo in Mexico,[17] and Talwar Gallery, which represents the artist, in New York and New Delhi.

Artwork

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DeSouza engages with issues of migration, relocation, and international travel in much of his artwork.[18][19][20] His photoworks, texts, and installations examine geography, culture, and personal and communal identity.[21][22] Much of his work takes up themes and visual vocabulary of migration and diaspora; his series of photographic work, The World Series, for example, was created as a response to Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series.[23][24][25][26] DeSouza is interested in movement, travel, dislocation, memory and time.[27][28]

For the photographic series The Lost Pictures, deSouza placed a number of slides of old family photos around his house, deliberately allowing them to become scratched, faded, and covered in dust.[29][30] DeSouza’s work, in the words of one critic, “explores...both memory and photography as means of recording and preserving the past from aging, loss, displacement, and historical change.”[31][32] Although often based in historical figures or events, his work also incorporates "fiction, erasure, re-inscription, and (mis)translation".[1]

Exhibitions

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A list of select exhibitions by deSouza include:

Solo exhibitions

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  • 2022: Talwar Gallery,Flotsam (1926–2018), New York[33]
  • 2022: Herbert F. Johnson Museum Museum of Art, Elegies of Futures Past, Ithaca, NY[34]
  • 2019: University of Seville, Building Paradise, Seville, Spain
  • 2019: University of Delaware, Allan deSouza – The Life of the Captain from The Letters and Journals of Visitaçao da Costa, Delaware
  • 2018: Krannert Art Museum, ‘’Through the Black Country,‘’ Champaign, IL[35]
  • 2018: The Mary and Carter Thacher Gallery, Through the Black Country, San Francisco, CA[36]
  • 2017: Talwar Gallery, Through the Black Country, New York[37]
  • 2015: Talwar Gallery, Notes from Afar, New York[38]
  • 2014: California Museum of Photography, Ark of Martyrs, Riverside, CA
  • 2012: Talwar Gallery, Painting Redux, New Delhi[39]
  • 2012 SFCamerawork, The World Series, San Francisco, CA[23]
  • 2011: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Close Quarters and Far Pavilions, San Francisco, CA[40]
  • 2011: The Phillips Collection, The World Series, Washington, DC[41]
  • 2011: Talwar Gallery, Trysts Tropicales, New York
  • 2011: Fowler Museum at UCLA, His Masters' Tools, Los Angeles, CA[42]
  • 2010–2011: The Farthest Point, Krannert Art Museum at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois[43]
  • 2008: Talwar Gallery, (i don't care what you say) Those Are Not Tourist Photos, New York
  • 2005: Talwar Gallery, The Lost Pictures, New York[44]
  • 2003: Talwar Gallery, people in white houses, New York[2]
  • 2001: Art in General, Terrain, New York
  • 2001:Talwar Gallery, Allan deSouza, New York[2]

Group exhibitions

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  • 2021: Talwar Gallery, as the wind blows, New York[45]
  • 2019: Pomona College Museum of Art, ‘’Stories: Selections from the Permanent Collection,‘’ Claremont, CA[46]
  • 2018: Dakota Gallery “Navigational Pull: The Art of Migration” A collaboration with Western Washington University students, Bellingham Wa[47]
  • 2013: Smithsonian Institution National Museum of African Art, Earth Matters, Washington, DC[48]
  • 2013: Charles Allis and Villa Terrace Museums, Chasing Horizons, Milwaukee, Wisconsin[49]
  • 2011: Paris Photo, works from the Walther Collection Exhibition, Events of the Self, Paris[50]
  • 2010: The Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art, Material Evidence, Manhattan, KS[51]
  • 2010: The Walther Collection, Events of the Self: Portraiture and Social Identity, Neu-Ulm, Germany[52]
  • 2010: Centre Georges Pompidou, Dreamlands, Paris[53]
  • 2008: 3rd Guangzhou Triennial, with Yong Soon Min, China[54]
  • 2007: Mattress Factory, Double Consciousness, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania[55]
  • 2006: International Center for Photography, SNAP Judgments, New York[56]
  • 2006: REDCat Gallery, An Image Bank for Everyday Revolutionary Life, Los Angeles, California[57]
  • 2005: Talwar Gallery, (desi)re, New York City[58]
  • 2004: Museum Kunstpalast, Africa Remix, Düsseldorf[59]
  • 2004: William Benton Museum of Art, Masala, Storrs Mansfield, Connecticut[60]
  • 2003: Museum for African Art, Looking Both Ways, New York
  • 1998: New Museum, Urban Encounters, New York[61]
  • 1997: Studio Museum in Harlem, Transforming the Crown, Harlem, New York City[62]
  • 1997: The Queens Museum, Out of India, Queens, New York City[63]
  • 1993: Whitney Museum, Whitney Biennial, Video collaboration with Yong Soon Min, New York[64]

Performances

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Allan deSouza". Allan deSouza. Archived from the original on 2013-10-15. Retrieved 2013-10-12.
  2. ^ a b c Cotter, Holland (2001-12-07). "Art in Review; Allan deSouza". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-09-17.
  3. ^ a b c Seydl, Jon L. (12 September 2021). "Memories at a distance: Allan deSouza". The News-Gazette. Archived from the original on 2021-09-12. Retrieved 2021-09-17.
  4. ^ Sujeet Rajan, “Creating models…”, The Indian Express, November 16, 2001.
  5. ^ "allan-bio « Talwar Gallery". Talwargallery.com. Retrieved 2013-10-12.
  6. ^ Deepak Talwar, (Desi)re, New York: Talwar Gallery, 2005.
  7. ^ Hallmark, Kara Kelley (2007). Encyclopedia of Asian American Artists. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 125. ISBN 978-0-313-33451-1.
  8. ^ "Min, Yong Soon, 1953-". The Library of Congress, LC Linked Data Service. Archived from the original on 2021-09-17. Retrieved 2021-11-14.
  9. ^ "Intersections: Allen DeSouza". The Phillips Collection. 23 June 2011. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  10. ^ Holland Cotter, "Colorful and Clashing: Looking at Africa", The New York Times, March 17, 2006.
  11. ^ "His Masters' Tools: Recent Work by Allan deSouza". Fowler Museum. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  12. ^ "Time / Image". Blaffer Art Museum. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  13. ^ "Allan deSouza: Through the Black Country." Krannert Art Museum. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  14. ^ "Dreamlands at the Pompidou". the Aesthetica Magazine. 21 May 2010. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  15. ^ "Africa Remix". Mori Art Museum. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  16. ^ "Snap Judgments-New Positions in Contemporary African Photography". Stedelijk Museum. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  17. ^ "Juicios Instantáneos Nuevas Posiciones EnLa Fotografía Africiana Contemoiránea". Museo Tamayo. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  18. ^ May Joseph (1999). Nomadic Identities: The Performance of Citizenship. U of Minnesota Press. pp. 146–. ISBN 978-0-8166-2636-6. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  19. ^ Britany Salsbury, "Critic’s Picks: Allan deSouza", Artforum, August 2011.
  20. ^ Karin Miller-Lewis, "Stripping Illusions," Art India, August 2008.
  21. ^ Lisa Piazza (2007). The Notion of Home and the Diasporic Subject: Memory and Forgetting in Allan deSouza's "The Lost Pictures" Series. pp. 7–. ISBN 978-0-549-32207-8. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  22. ^ Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Jacana Media. 2007. pp. 192–. ISBN 978-1-77009-363-8. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  23. ^ a b Julia Glosemeyer, "The World Series", Art Practical, February 2012, accessed July 22, 2013.
  24. ^ Joanna Grabski; Carol Magee (2013). African Art, Interviews, Narratives: Bodies of Knowledge at Work. Indiana University Press. pp. 163–. ISBN 978-0-253-00699-8. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  25. ^ David Lloyd (2008). Irish Times: Temporalities of Modernity. Field Day Publications. pp. 147–. ISBN 978-0-946755-40-0. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  26. ^ Holland Cotter, "Allan deSouza", The New York Times, February 29, 2008.
  27. ^ Margo Machida (2009). Unsettled Visions: Contemporary Asian American Artists and the Social Imaginary. Duke University Press. pp. 334–. ISBN 978-0-8223-9174-6. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  28. ^ Lavina Melwani, "Blurred Tenses", India Today, December 17, 2001.
  29. ^ “Allan DeSouza”, The Village Voice, July 2005.
  30. ^ Ken Johnson, "Allan DeSouza: ‘The Lost Pictures’", The New York Times, July 8, 2005.
  31. ^ “Allan deSouza: The Lost Pictures,” Modern Painters, September 2005.
  32. ^ Janet Staiger; Ann Cvetkovich; Ann Reynolds (2010). Political Emotions. Routledge. pp. 165–. ISBN 978-0-203-84953-8. Retrieved 8 July 2013.
  33. ^ "Flotsam (1926-2018),« Talwar Gallery".
  34. ^ "Al-An deSouza: Elegies of Futures Past, Johnson Museum of Art". Retrieved 2023-06-24.
  35. ^ "Through the Black Country..., Mary and Carter Thacher Gallery, Krannert Art Museum".
  36. ^ "Through the Black Country, or, The Sources of the Thames Around the Great Shires of Lower England and Down the Severn River to the Atlantic Ocean, Mary and Carter Thacher Gallery, University of San Francisco".
  37. ^ "Through the Black Country,« Talwar Gallery".
  38. ^ "Notes from Afar,« Talwar Gallery".
  39. ^ Sonam Joshi, "Paint it black", Time Out Delhi, December 2012, accessed July 22, 2013.
  40. ^ "Allan deSouza: Close Quarters and Far Pavilions," Flavorpill Archived 2013-10-11 at archive.today accessed July 22, 2013.
  41. ^ Britany Salsbury, "Critic's Picks," Art Forum, August 2011.
  42. ^ "Alumnus Allan deSouza reworks famed masterpieces to explore feelings of displacement", Daily Bruin, January 23, 2011, accessed July 22, 2013.
  43. ^ Allyson Purpura, "Allan deSouza: The Farthest Point," Ninth Letter, accessed July 22, 2013.
  44. ^ "The Listings: July 1 – July 7, Allan deSouza: The Lost Pictures". The New York Times. 2005-07-01. ISSN 0362-4331.
  45. ^ "as the wind blows, « Talwar Gallery".
  46. ^ "Stories: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Pomona College Museum of Art". Retrieved 2023-06-24.
  47. ^ "Navigational Pull: The Art of Migration, Dakota Gallery". Retrieved 2023-06-24.
  48. ^ Lonnae O'Neal Parker, "'Earth Matters,' at National Museum of African Art, looks at humanity's ties to planet", The Washington Post, April 21, 2013.
  49. ^ "Chasing Horizons", Express Milwaukee, July 17, 2013.
  50. ^ "Paris Photo 2011 Private Collection", La Journal de la Photographie, August 11, 2011.
  51. ^ "Beach Museum Gathers 'Material Evidence' for Exhibit", November 10, 2010.
  52. ^ "Events of the Self", E-Flux, April 23, 2010.
  53. ^ "Dreamlands at the Pompidou", Aesthetica Magazine Blog, May 21, 2010.
  54. ^ Saskia Draxler, "3rd Guangzhou Triennial" Archived 2015-09-15 at the Wayback Machine, frieze 119, November–December 2008.
  55. ^ Savannah Guz, "We're seeing 'Double Consciousness,' with art of the Indian diaspora, at The Mattress Factory", Pittsburgh City Paper, June 14, 2007.
  56. ^ Holland Cotter, "Colorful and Clashing: Looking at Africa", The New York Times, March 17, 2006.
  57. ^ "An Image Bank for Everyday Revolutionary Life," ARTnews, 2006.
  58. ^ Holland Cotter, "Desi(re)", The New York Times, March 25, 2005.
  59. ^ Roland Kapferer, "Africa Remix" Archived 2014-02-02 at the Wayback Machine, frieze 92, June–August 2005.
  60. ^ Holland Cotter, "Art in Review; 'Masala'", The New York Times, April 9, 2004.
  61. ^ Holland Cotter, "Urban Encounters", The New York Times, August 14, 1998.
  62. ^ Dan Gaba, "Playing in the Neighborhood", The New York Times, October 12, 1997.
  63. ^ Holland Cotter, "Many Shows and Many Indias", The New York Times, December 26, 1997.
  64. ^ Roberta Smith, "At the Whitney, A Biennal with a Social Conscience", The New York Times, March 5, 1993.
  65. ^ "Artist to discuss 'Bodies in Transit'", UNC News, October 12, 2009.
  66. ^ "New Geographies in Contemporary African Art", HNet: Humanities and Social Sciences Online, February 12, 2008.
  67. ^ "Will **** for Peace" Archived 2013-11-04 at the Wayback Machine, Oboro, May 2003.
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