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Born: 01/11/72, Manassas, VA
Resides: Brooklyn, NY
Brooklyn!, Curated by Dominique Nahas & Michael Rush, Palm Beach Institute
of Contemporary Art, Lake Worth, FL, 09/09/01
Two Friends and so on, Curated by Rob Pruitt & Jonathan Horowitz, Andrew
Kreps Gallery, New York, 06/10/00
In the Shadow of the Flag, Curated by Anna Kustera, Tippy Stern Fine
Art/Spoleto Festival, Charleston, SC, 06/02/00
Allison Smith/ Sharon Core/ Simone DiLaura, Bellwether, Brooklyn, 03/12/00
The Searchers, Artists Space, Curated by Robert Longo, New York, 11/01/99
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The Whight Biennial, University of California, Los Angeles, 10/08/99
Lower East Side Printshop Special Editions Fellowship, 03/01/01
Yale School of Art Susan H. Whedon Award, 05/01/99
Leopold Schepp Foundation Fellowship, 01/01/99
Lang College David Woods Award, 05/01/95
Brooklyn!, exhibition catalog, Palm Beach ICA, 09/01/01
In the Shadow of the Flag, exhibition catalog, Tippy Stern Fine Art,
06/02/00
Spoleto 2000: The Flag as Art, by Jeffrey Day, The State, 06/09/00
Allison Smith at Bellwether, by Helen Burnham, NY Arts, 05/01/00
The Whight Biennial, exhibition catalog, University of California, Los
Angeles,10/08/01
Studio Program, Whitney Museum Independent Study Program, 05/01/00
MFA, Sculpture, Yale School of Art, 05/01/99
BFA, Fine Arts, Parsons School of Design, 05/01/95
BA, Psychology, New School for Social Research, 05/01/95
Farby (adj.): a term thought to derive from the expression "Far be it from me to criticize, but...", commonly used just before someone points out that your historical impression lacks a certain authenticity, in their opinion; for Yankee and Confederate re-enactors alike, a good cut-down for bad knock-offs.
I have been thinking a lot lately about "authentic reproductions," participant-observers (indigenous anthropologists), the phenomenon of Living History, and other oxymorons. I am intrigued by the pervasiveness of historicized suburban space, in which architecture, d�cor, and product design conjoin to promise a form of time travel. Art production, for me, involves a series of re-enactment exercises carried out in the attempt to engage with one of art�s propositions: to take you somewhere. Much of my work exists as a series of prototypes, kits, and souvenirs-functional and metaphorical props that are self-referential and suggest repeat performances. I wish to problematize the desire to access aesthetic and formal genealogies, and to propose instead the multiple identities and destinies of the things I produce. I resist the convention of patina as an illusionistic device meant to spark nostalgia, as well as the use of handmade to signify sincere. Rather, I would like to achieve the commodified sentiment, melodrama, and discontinuous narrative of a choice Hallmark greeting card. My work involves anachronism, but it is not about history as much as a certain metaphorical moment between function and decoration. It is subjective and idiosyncratic, and admittedly farby.
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ALL IMAGES © Allison Smith
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