A Moment in Time: Drawings, 1991-1992: Allan McCollum

Galerie Thomas Schulte presents A Moment in Time: Drawings, 1991-1992, a solo exhibition by Allan McCollum. Featuring nine Collections of Drawings, the show comprises altogether 570 individual pieces from McCollum’s Drawings series, a body of work that stands among the most emblematic in his lifelong investigation of the individual within systems of repetition, reproduction, and proliferation. Coinciding with the gallery’s 35th anniversary, the Potsdamer Strasse space will be dedicated to the historic work of an artist whom the gallery has represented since its founding in 1991 and who has profoundly shaped its conceptual program ever since.

From the 1970s onward, McCollum’s practice has focused on processes of cultural reception, developing bodies of work that examine the relationship between serially produced objects and the formation of meaning and value. These works often take the form of Collections—of photographs, sculptural objects, or, as in this case, of drawings—comprising anywhere from a few individual elements to thousands of them. Uniform and appearing almost industrial at first glance, the elements are distinguished by form variations that render each of them unique. The Collections thus operate at the threshold between singular and multiple, individual and collective, legible and illegible, reflecting the paradox of human existence: the desire to belong to a larger group while also remaining one-of-a-kind.

Preceded by the acclaimed Surrogate Paintings (1978) and Plaster Surrogates (1982), McCollum began his series of Drawings in 1988, the only body of work he has produced using a traditional artistic medium: pencil on paper. Conceived during a pivotal moment in his practice, the Drawings developed in dialogue with Over Ten Thousand Individual Works (1987) and laid important groundwork for later projects such as The Shapes Project (2005) or Each and Every One of You (2004).

The Drawings comprise black abstract forms on white backgrounds that were created using variations of only two basic graphic elements: 90-degree arcs and straight lines. McCollum designed hundreds of different plastic templates from combinations of these components—a kind of vocabulary of curves functioning as modular segments that can be paired in many thousands of different ways. To create unique, emblem-like shapes, these segments were combined according to a numerical system to ensure that no two were ever exactly alike. Each individual form was then traced and filled in by hand using graphite pencil on museum board.

Installed in an almost overwhelming density across the gallery’s walls—a space that used to be an apartment and whose creaking floorboards and double-casement windows still bear a certain domesticity—the display of framed images recalls a portrait hall or a set of family photographs. The very inspiration for these works originates in McCollum’s interest in heraldry: the study of coats of arms and the histories of the families to which they belong. Fascinated by the capacity of images to invite a variety of people to consider themselves within a group and feel united, be it through family crests, logos, or flags, McCollum went a step further to ask how symbols could be used to help us identify ourselves as individuals. Could a set of symbols exist that stand for unity and diversity at the same time?

The Drawings could be seen as a model experiment to create a system for producing a unique emblematic "shape" for each person on the planet. Choosing a shape to identify with resembles our attempt as individuals to carve out a distinct personality for ourselves with interests, skills, and features that distinguish us from the rest. Yet, this urge is always accompanied by the fundamental human drive to belong and to connect. Accordingly, at first glance, overwhelmed by the abundance of exhibits, a visitor may not immediately perceive the uniqueness of any given piece. Only upon close inspection does each Drawing’s singularity reveal itself.