Allison Young is Contributing Editor for Global Modern and Contemporary Art. She is currently Assistant Professor for Contemporary Art History at Louisiana State University. A specialist in postcolonial and contemporary art of the Global South, Allison received her Ph.D. in Art History in 2017 from the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, with her dissertation “Torn and Most Whole: On the Poetics of Difference in the Art of Zarina Bhimji." She previously held an Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship in Modern and Contemporary Art at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where her curatorial projects included Carlos Rolón: Outside/In (2018), Changing Course: Reflections on New Orleans Histories (2018), Lina Iris Viktor: A Haven. A Hell. A Dream Deferred (2018), Bodies of Knowledge (2019) and others.
Xu Bing’s text is illegible—even to those who can read Chinese.
While Hamilton's Just What is It… is considered to be among the most foundational works of Pop Art, this small collage was initially not created as a work of art.
In The Swing (After Fragonard), which is loaded with references to the French Revolution, the Age of Enlightenment and colonial expansion into Africa, Shonibare asks us to consider how a simple act of leisure can be so controversial.
How would you paint a picture of something that’s not quite representable… like the sound of voices chanting, a spiritual vision, a childhood memory, or a dream that you can’t remember?
How would you paint a picture of something that’s not quite representable… like the sound of voices chanting, a spiritual vision, a childhood memory, or a dream that you can’t remember?