Join us for a talk by exhibiting artist Allan de Souza, titled "Through the Black Country: Body Doubles and Fictive Presence."
Artworks are commonly viewed as stand-ins for the artist, as the truth of the artist's interiority manifested in material objects. Allan deSouza will consider his own work through this desire for "truthiness," what possibilities there are for artistic doppelgangers and fictional stand-ins, and what roles they might serve in an era of "fake news."
Allan deSouza is a multi-media artist whose works restage historical evidence through counter-strategies of humor, fiction, and (mis)translation. Comprised of photographs, maps, diary extracts, and a recreated base camp, Through the Black Country... charts an expedition through London of the fictional Zanzibari crypto-ethnographer Sidi Mubarak Mumbai, whose accounts of the city implicate Brexit isolationism in the racial legacies of colonialism in London today.
This artist talk is sponsored in part by the Frances P. Rohlen Visiting Artist Fund/College of Fine and Applied Arts, the School of Art + Design Visitors Committee Fund, and Krannert Art Museum.
Krannert Art Museum exhibitions are made possible in part by a generous grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
