Allan McCollum, Parables, 1998. Photo Mattias Givell.
Allan McCollum
Allan McCollum
(Born 1944, works in New York)
Parables, 1998
12 casts in pigmented concrete
Diameter 200 cm
With support from Broby Modellindustri AB
Allan McCollum’s Parables consists of 12 concrete casts of stumps placed in different parts of the park. A stump of an elm tree in the Wanås parking lot was his starting point when the work was created in 1998. At around the same time, he read about the Dutch elm disease that was ravaging the region, and McCollum was interested in the shape of the stump as well as the significance of elm trees to the southern Swedish landscape, especially along the old avenues. He cast the 12 concrete stumps and tinted them in grey, brown, and yellow hues, which he associated with disease. McCollum often uses methods of mass production to produce vast amounts of seemingly identical objects in comprehensive installations that challenge both the supremacy of the original within the art world, and the harsh distinction between the hand-made and mass-produced. He sees instead a democratic potential inmass-produced objects, because they offer the possibility of being used by more people.
