Allen-Golder Carpenter - “To Dream of Smoke - 100 Rappers” - 256 page book self-published by Allen-Golder Carpenter and No Gallery. Limited to 100 copies. - 6 x 4 x 0¾ in. (15.24 x 10.16 x 1.91 cm)
The book is reversible with the front half of the book being Carpenters research material and notes and the back half of the book being the individual and pixilated photos from the 100 Rappers project.
The title of Carpenters solo exhibition "To Dream of Smoke" is taken from the Cities Aviv track of the same name, that opens with a monologue by (name), describing a fictional character of their design, "Joshua", that is meant to encompass all the different black boys who resort to less-than-legal means of advancing their position in society at an attempt to re-humanize the perception young black men in the street, the very people that hip hop itself came from.
Looking at rap with a dissecting eye as a bi product of the the intersection of all of the for-mentioned themes, themes that transcend social divisions and backgrounds.
The project serves as the finale in an unnoffical trilogy of solo exhibitions which span my "Body Surrogate" series, installations that operate as loosely representational depictions of the black male form.
