EXCERPTED FROM:
THE SAN DIEGO UNION - TRIBUNE
San Diego, California Jan 25, 2001.

WAIT, THERE'S MORE INSITE2000 ISN'T OVER YET TAKE A NEW LOOK [excerpt] Allan McCollum. Mount Signal Souvenirs for the Imperial Valley. 2000. Plaster, latex paint. by Robert L. Pincus The New York-based Allan McCollum, justly praised for elaborate conceptual works that are also compellingly visual, found a way of meeting this goal while remaining true to his aesthetic. The results are in a convincing exhibition at SDSU's University Art Gallery, "Signs of the Imperial Valley: Sand Spikes From Mount Signal" (through March 3). The catalyst was his fascination with the geological phenomena mentioned in the title of his show -- round at one end and narrowing at a point at the other extreme. There was once a plenitude of these curious formations at the base of Mount Signal (the Centinela, in Spanish), which straddles the international border. This distinctive aspect of the landscape is now exhausted by collectors and souvenir-hunters, but McCollum wanted to raise the spike's profile — and encourage dialogue about community identity — by organizing three shows at local showcases in the Imperial Valley and the Valle de Mexicali. This he did, late last year. At the same time, he got to know the region's artists, whose work fills the walls in his current show. The vast majority are amateur painters, unknown to anyone outside Mexicali or Calexico. Fittingly, most paint the mountain that is the source of the spikes. A few, like Manuel Aguilar and Ruben Garcia Benavides, do so with flair. McCollum's own work consists of a giant version of the sand spike and hundreds of little ones he has dubbed souvenirs. They are cast in plaster, but are sand-covered to look authentic. Opposite them are an equal number of miniatures of Mount Signal, done in a pinkish hue. All are displayed in tidy grids. There is commentary in their numbers. Seeing the Imperial Valley / Valle de Mexicali as an area that didn't produce its own souvenirs, he filled the vacuum and plans to give many of them to the Imperial County Historical Society Pioneers Museum to sell in their shop. The artist's souvenirs are also — by serendipity or intention, it's not clear — art historical. The sand spikes are phallic, seemingly by coincidence, like Duchamp's "Object-Dard" (1951) and the little sculptures of the mountain have an uncanny relationship to the same artist's "Female Fig Leaf" (1950). But as Duchamp and the Surrealists so richly demonstrated, the conscious mind may perceive a choice as accidental when that simply isn't the case.

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