Nele Gülck

PALMS. Visions of the good life. A dream, a hope, an escape from everyday life. Where palms grow, paradise is not far away. With candles and ashtrays in the shape of palms or a glitter palm in an ice-cream sundae, we take a bit of it home—an admission that we dream a dream of great happiness, combined with a genial petty bourgeois mentality. Alf Trojan’s private collection of palms, with over 1500 objects, is a total work of art. It shows how the palm as a motif has remained unchanged, but that the longing connected with it has again and again sought new contexts over the course of time. The publication is a journey of discovery through the facets of a culture of longing and a collecting mania.