Each and Every One of You: ALLAN MCCOLLUM

“There is a fearful void,” says McCollum, “in the gap between the names we are given and the presence we have with one another”. Hoping to evoke an avalanche of memory and feeling with the simplest of means, McCollum researched the U.S. Census bureau’s most recent compilation of common names used in the U.S., and produced three suites of 1200 prints, each one identically executed and framed: the 600 most common female names and the 600 most common male names.

At Galerie Thomas Schulte, the names are hung in a dense grid – from Mary to Janine, from James to Quinton – and placed in narrow rows, generating in the beholder memories, emotions, and associations in a play with individuality, identity, and the mass that is typical of Allan McCollum’s work.