Allan DeSouza

Friday, January 13 - Sunday, February 25, 2012
Opening Reception: Friday, January 20, 5-8 pm

Allan deSouza's The World Series (2011) was inspired by Jacob Lawrence's iconic The Migration Series (1941), which portrays the 20th-century migration of African Americans from the Deep South to Northern cities. DeSouza's photographs invoke history to track contemporary pathways through the signage of metaphorical, transcultural, political, and psychogeographic encounters. The paths taken may refer to deSouza's own migrations (Kenya, England, the United States) -and indeed some elements of deSouza's biography surface throughout the series. Conversely, these encounters may suggest a fictional protagonist who moves through them, much like in a novel, storyboard, or film; or the encounters could themselves be perceived as protagonists, as they are largely understood through narratives suggested both within each photograph and through their accumulation and sequencing. Whether these images speak to the tales of a tourist, migrant, exile, returnee, or one who inhabits many locations and psyches, it is precisely through combining fictional strategies with the truth-telling claims of photography that we are led to multivalent counter-readings of history.

Support for this exhibition has been provided by: the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency; the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the San Francisco Arts Commission; and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.