Allan deSouza and Yong Soon Min

AlterNatives

April 5 - June 15, 1997
Menschel Gallery catalogue #48


Issues of race, cultural identity and the politics of representation infuse the photographic and installation based works of artists Allan deSouza and Yong Soon Min. They explore the relationships between anthropological/ethnographic study and photography, the position of anthropologist/ethnographer (informant) to the subject of study (native), and the role of the artist as native/informant within the art world.

Since 1992 they have been frequent collaborators, both as artists and husband and wife. Their shared experiences of cultural displacement have become a common thread throughout their independent and collaborative works. Through the work in this exhibition, Min and deSouza have become the informants, filtering their own experiences and experiences of others to a broader audience.

Taj Company
Allan deSouza
from the series
Coconut Chutney, 1996

The creation and criticism of work dealing with issues of race and culture have become a veritable minefield of expression in which deSouza and Min are able to freely move across, but not without their own concerns. For both artists there are questions raised over the expectation of their work, as artists of color, being restricted to autobiographical experiences alone. They invite the viewer into a truly multicultural dialogue, where we are more likely to discover the homogeneity within all of us by acknowledging the collective experiences of others.