From:
THE ADAIR HISTORIAN
Published Quarterly by the Adair County Historical society, Inc.
Volume 1 Number 4
Fall 2003
New York Artist Donates
 
 
PHOTO: Cydney Millstein of Kansas City and Allan McCollum of New York City delivering the topographical map to the Adair County Historical Society.

Allan McCollum, an artist who lives in New York City, donated a topographical map of the state of Missouri to the Adair County Historical Society. The original topographical model was created by using a computer controlled routing machine. The machine was programmed with geographic information systems data supplied by the U.S. Government.

McCollum has the Grand Arts gallery in Kansas City to help finance and produce an art exhibition. In this exhibition, McCollum will explore the topography of Kansas and Missouri. McCollum believes that everyone has a profound emotional involvement with such features of his own home territory and that these feelings can be an interesting subject for artistic exploration.

The first part of McCollum's project is typical of what one expects from an artist, to make some artworks for a gallery to be offered for sale. For this purpose McCollum has created a series of three-dimensional, topographical models of the two states, Missouri and Kansas, each cast from a mold in ceramic and finished with bright colored glazes.

The second part of the project uses the same models, but to create an object for an entirely different purpose. These plaster and cement models are being donated to small regional historical society museums throughout Missouri and Kansas. Each museum can paint its model in a unique way. McCollum says,"This part of the project is less about the objects themselves, and more about the 'distribution' of the objects; one could think about the movement of these objects across two states as a kind of 'sculpture in motion."' The Adair County Historical Society is seeking suggestions as to how to uniquely paint our model of Missouri.

McCollum's exhibition of the ceramic models will be on view from November 7 through December 20, 2003, at Grand Arts, 1819 Grand Boulevard, Kansas City, Mo 64108. For those interested in learning more about the project as a whole, you are invited to visit the project website: topomodels.html. For those who would like more information, the gallery's phone number is 816-421-6887.