Allen-Golder Carpenter
Allen-Golder Carpenter
b. 1999, Washington D.C.
Lives and works in the D.C. area
Allen‑Golder Carpenter is a gender-nonconforming interdisciplinary artist, designer, poet, author, and activist. Drawing from rap culture, Black radical tradition, found objects and media, Carpenter’s work interrogates memory, systemic violence, and cultural erasure—especially as experienced by Black communities in the United States.
Often taking form as immersive installations involving objects, video, sound, and performance, Carpenter’s work explores cycles of life, death, and reincarnation as a framework for thinking through history and the burden of its preservation. Recent projects have involved restructuring space through the construction of image laden fencing throughout galleries, memorializing and celebrating the life of Maryland drill rapper Goonew, transforming a gallery into a prison cell in which Carpenter lived for 72 hours, and a recent performance and screening at Schinkel Pavillion presenting a meditation on memory, transformation, and the instability of historical perspective. Carpenter’s work is layered and complex, forging paths through time and geography.
Carpenter’s musical pursuits, under the moniker Sojourn, take shape as experimental noise, hip-hop, rap, clarinet, and saxophone jazz recordings. For Carpenter, jazz is not only a musical genre but a historical medium of Black self-empowerment, improvisation, and resistance.
SOLO & TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS
| 2025 | Same Things Make Us Laugh Make Us Cry Pt. 2, Witness: Act 1, Derosia, New York, NY Sojourn, Schinkel Pavillon, curated by TICK TACK & 032c, Berlin, Germany Sojourn, TICK TACK, Antwerp, Belgium Same Things Make Us Laugh, Make Us Cry, 032c Gallery, Berlin, Germany The Cost of Confinement: Cell 72 with Emmanuel Massillon, Harlesden High Street, London, UK YEAR13AT, Förderverein Aktuelle Kunst, Münster, Germany |
| 2024 | To Dream of Smoke, No Gallery, New York, NY |
| 2023 | Water Memory, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria Ghetto Body Surrogate / My Body My Song, Screw Gallery, Leeds, UK |
| 2022 | Afotèz: Paper, Cotton, Stone./ SAMSARA, von ammon co, Washington D.C. |
GROUP EXHIBITIONS & SCREENINGS
| 2025 | Systems of Subversion, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria Prison Times Flashback, Drop City Centre for Architecture & Design, Milan, Italy Museum at Risk, Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp, Belgium I TRUST PAIN, Camden Art Centre, London, UK Sojourners, TICK TACK, Antwerp, Belgium Polyphonic Views, Spatial Festival, Funkhaus Berlin, Berlin, Germany In Media Res, Derosia, New York, NY Arrival Art Fair, North Adams, MA To Be Seen By Heavy Eyes, Silke Lindner, New York, NY I Don’t Want A Nation of Thinkers, I Want A Nation of Workers, Mery Gates, Brooklyn, NY Prison Times: Spatial Dynamics of Penal Environments, Drop City Centre for Architecture & Design, Milan, Italy Content Industrial Complex, 032c Gallery, Berlin, Germany |
| 2024 | PRIVATE ACCESS, TICK TACK, Antwerp, Belgium Nexus, Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin, Germany STREET SPACE BANGER curated by TICK TACK, Kunsthalle, Recklinghausen, Germany |
| 2023 | NADA, No Gallery, Miami, FL Very Friendly curated by Agnes Gryczkowska, HOUSE, Berlin, Germany Armory Off-Site at the US Open, No Gallery, USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, Queens, NY NADA, No Gallery, New York, NY FOCUS GROUP 4, von ammon co, Washington D.C. Dwelling, White Columns (Online), New York, NY Pedagogy as Self, HOUSING, New York, NY 20/92, Icebox Project Space, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| 2022 | Before Black Had A Name, SHUNGU, Frederick, MD Unveiling Resistance, Galleries at CCBC Essex, Baltimore, MD |
| 2021 | February Install, Dupont Underground, Washington D.C. |
RESIDENCIES
| 2025 | Artist-in-Residence, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria Artist-in-Residence, TICK TACK Antwerp, Belgium |
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
| 2025 | Sojourners, TICK TACK, Antwerp, Beglium |
DIRECTED FILMS
| 2025 | Black Cell North Sea Calls Black Noise Sojourn |
| 2024 | Black Internet |
| 2023 | Alive In The Living Room |
| 2021 | Kites |
PERFORMANCES
| 2025 | Jazz Window, ConcertSeries1, Landhus Saal, Zurich, Switzerland Sojourn, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany Thug Cube, Drop City Centre for Architecture & Design, Milan, Italy |
| 2024 | KIDZ Publication Launch, Printed Matter, New York, NY Sojourn w/ Blackhaine, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, Germany |
| 2023 | THIS IS NOT AN OPERA, w/ Richie Culver, Galerie Kandlhofer (off-site), Vienna, Austria Dreams and Nightmares, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria |
| 2021 | My Body My Song, The Living Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
LECTURES & TALKS
| 2025 | Visiting Artist Program, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, New York, NY Subject vs. Environment, Kunstakademie Münster, Germany |
| 2022 | Afotèz: Paper, Cotton, Stone. In conversation with Daniel Adegbesan, von ammon co, Washington D.C. |
PRESS
Black Noise: Allen-Golder Carpenter, Film Internet Culture, Adrianna Caserta, October 7, 2025
Allen-Golder Carpenter at Derosia, Emergence Magazine, October 2025
Sojourn, Allan Gardner, émergent Magazine, August 20, 2025
“My biggest fear”: The artist spending three days banged up in a jail cell, Eddy Frankel, The Guardian, June 5, 2025
What to See During London Gallery Weekend 2025, Thomas McMullan, Frieze, June 3, 2025
London Gallery Weekend 2025: Our critics pick their top shows, Ben Luke & Louisa Buck, The Art Newspaper, June 3, 2025
Black Internet: Allen-Golder Carpenter and the Parable of the White Folding Chair, Jard Lerebours, 032c, March 18, 2025
Streetspace Banger at Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Fionn Adamian, Berlin Art Link, September 11, 2024
You Can’t Teach Sauce: Allen-Golder, Carpenter Examines Rap Culture at No Gallery, Mekala Rajagopal, Interview Magazine, March 22, 2024
Allen-Golder Dreams of Smoke, Jard Lerebours, Office Magazine, March 22, 2024
Conceptual Audacity, Annalisa Fabbrucci, Nasty Magazine, March 2024
Allen-Golder Carpenter: Winter in America, Mary Jones, Two Coats of Paint, March 12, 2024
Allen Golder Wears Black Foamposites, Jard Lerebours, Office Magazine, June 8, 2023
In the galleries: Artists imagine red in images from brutal to banal, Mark Jenkins, The Washington Post, May 26, 2023