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Allan McCollum

SELECTED WORKS
Collection of Sixty Drawings
1989/91
Artist’s pencil on museum board in sixty parts

Installation dimensions are variable:
80 x 134 inches when installed in six rows
67 x 162 inches when installed in five rows
53 x 203 inches when installed in four rows
Signed on reverse on each drawing
(Inventory #30854)

Collection of Five Plaster Surrogates
1982/92
Enamel on cast Hydrostone in five parts

Installation dimensions are variable:
This installation: 20 x 74 3/4 inches (51 x 190 cm)
Signed and dated verso
(Inventory #35660)

The Shapes Project: Collection of Sixty Perfect Couples
2005/2012
Acrylic with varnish on wood in sixty parts

Panel size: 10 x 10 inches each (25.4 x 25.4 cm each)
Installation dimensions are variable.
This installation: 54 x 131 inches (137 x 333 cm)
Each panel is signed, identification numbered and dated on reverse
(Inventory #24649)

 

The Shapes Project: Threaded Shapes (Collection of 36)
2005/2009-2010
A collection of unique digitized embroidered shapes on cotton fabric in oval walnut frame

Walnut frame: 11 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches each (28.6 x 23.5 cm each)
Signed ‘Allan McCollum’ on reverse on each shape
(Inventory #21515)

Available as a set or singly

from The Shapes Project
(2005 -)
Digitally printed monoprints from Vector files in 144 parts

5 7/8 x 4 3/8 x 1/4 inches each (3 inches when foot of stand is out)
Installation dimensions are variable:
Installation size (horizontal): 52 x 124 inches
Installation size (vertical): 90 x 62 inches
(Inventory #22423)

The Shapes Project: Collection of Twelve Perfect Couples
2005/2012
Acrylic with varnish on wood in twelve parts

Panel size: 10 x 10 inches each (25.4 x 25.4 cm each)
Installation dimensions are variable:
This installation: 21 x 65 inches (53.3 x 165.1 cm)
Each panel is signed, identification numbered and dated on reverse
(Inventory #24654)

 

The Shapes Project: Shapes From Maine Shapes Rubber Stamps
2005/2008
Wood and rubber in 144 parts

Each element: 1 1/4 x 1 1/8 x 1 3/4 inches (3.2 x 2.9 x 4.4 cm)
Installation dimensions are variable
Each one with signed authentication card
(Inventory #25171)

Plaster Surrogate
1984
Enamel on cast Hydrostone

14 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 2 inches (37.5 x 29.8 x 5.1 cm)
Signed and dated verso
(Inventory #37203)

Visible Markers (Drawings)
1998
Four graphite drawings on rag paper

5 x 7 inches each (12.7 x 17.8 cm each)
Signed, titled, and dated on reverse of each
(Inventory #34436)

Perpetual photo #54B
1985
Unique silver gelatin print

Frame size: 8 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (21.6 x 34.3 cm)
Signed and titled verso in ink
(Inventory #36848)

For the Millions/Just for You
2021
72 archival pigment prints adhered to an archival pigment prints

Paper size: 25 5/16 x 37 5/8 inches (64.3 x 95.6 cm)
Frame size: 33 5/8 x 46 inches (85.4 x 116.8 cm)
Initialed and dated lower right in ink on each shape
#50 from a series of 50 unique pieces
(Inventory #33512)

More Visible Markers in Four Exciting Colors
2000
Four painted hydrocal multiples

4″ diameter x 1 3/4 inches high each (10.2 x 4.4 cm each)
Signed and dated on reverse of each element
(Inventory #34440)

The Shapes Project: Threaded Shape (a095 b115 c097 d117)
2005-
2010
Unique digitized embroidered shape on cotton fabric in oval walnut frame

Walnut frame: 11 1/4 x 9 1/4 inches (28.6 x 23.5 cm)
Signed ‘Allan McCollum’ on reverse on each shape
(Inventory #27279)

Fixed Intervals
1988-92
Set of five brass objects from a series of twenty

Louise Lawler and Allan McCollum
Fixed Intervals, 1988-92
Set of five brass objects from a series of twenty
Object 16A size: 7 x 5 5/8 x 1/2 inches (17.8 x 14.3 x 1.3 cm)
Object 16B size: 4 3/4 x 2 x 1/2 inches (12.1 x 5.1 x 1.3 cm)
Object 17 size: 8 3/8 x 4 1/2 x 1/2 inches (21.3 x 11.4 x 1.3 cm)
Object 18 size: 8 5/8 x 3 1/2 x 1/2 inches (21.9 x 8.9 x 1.3 cm)
Object 19A size: 4 7/8 x 4 1/8 x 1/2 inches (12.4 x 10.5 x 1.3 cm)
Object 19B size: 4 7/8 x 4 1/8 x 1/2 inches (12.4 x 10.5 x 1.3 cm)
Object 20 size: 5 x 4 5/8 x 1/2 inches (12.7 x 11.7 x 1.3 cm)
Edition of 25
(Inventory #32770)

Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Additional Information

Allan McCollum was born in 1944 in Los Angeles. In 1946, his family moved to Redondo Beach, California, where he lived until 1966. He briefly studied restaurant management and industrial kitchen work at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, but decided to educate himself as an artist in 1967. In lieu of formal art education, he read the writings of artists of the international Fluxus movement, and of conceptual artists including Daniel Buren and Sol LeWitt. He also began working as a truck driver and crate builder for an art handling company in West Hollywood and learned about the mechanisms of the contemporary art world through meeting artists, art dealers, collectors, and curators. Establishing his first studio in in the late 1960’s, McCollum soon began exhibiting work in Nicholas Wilder Gallery and Claire Copley Gallery, both in Los Angeles.

He moved to New York in 1975, settling in the SoHo neighborhood. Early on, his work focused on the intersection of mass production and the uniqueness, both material and conceptual, of the art object. His series Over Ten Thousand Individual Works (1987-88), exhibited in 1988 at John Weber Gallery, New York, comprised rows of miniature objects, each one cast separately from a unique combination of found household items, such as bottle caps and kitchen tools. McCollum repeated this process in 1989 in a series of a few thousand drawings, each one created using a unique combination of hundreds of plastic drafting templates that he had made according to a systemic, non-repetitive process. McCollum’s interest in the mass production of images and objects, and in layers of uniqueness and difference, led him to mass media as a source. In his Perpetual Photo series (1982-89), he photographed television stills, obscuring his source material through cropping and enlargement, creating a visually frustrating hybrid of copy and original.

In a recent work, The Shapes Project (2005), McCollum created a system to generate billions of similar but non-repeating shapes from combinations of 300 “parts,” ostensibly to provide one “for every person on the planet.” Since then, he has used his shapes system to produce both prints and sculptures in Plexiglas, Corian, plywood, hardwood, metal, and other materials. In his 2010 publication The Book of Shapes, McCollum further explored his interest in combining conceptual and material accessibility with theoretical ideas on the “uniqueness” of the art object. The publication provides both the 300 basic shape parts and instruction for generating all possible combinations of those parts.

McCollum has been the subject of over 100 solo exhibitions at institutions including Artists Space, New York (1979-80); Portikus, Frankfurt (1988); Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands (1989); Denver Art Museum (1990); Musée d’art moderne de Lille Métropole, Villeneuve d’Ascq, France (1998); Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Geneva (2006); and Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami (2020). His work was included in Aperto at the 1988 Venice Biennale and in the Sao Paulo Biennial (2008). McCollum has produced numerous public art projects in the United States and Europe. He lives and works in New York.

—Text edited from the Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York

Allan McCollum: The Shapes Project

January 14, 2023
- February 25, 2023

One Wall, One Work: Allan McCollum

September 9, 2020
- October 2, 2020

Allan McCollum: from The Shapes Project – POSTPONED

April 11, 2020
- May 9, 2020

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA), The Art Show 2020

February 26, 2020
- March 1, 2020

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA), The Art Show 2018

February 27, 2018
- March 4, 2018

Specifics

November 11, 2017
- December 23, 2017

Featuring works by Richard Artschwager, James Castle, and Allan McCollum

Darkling

March 18, 2017
- April 22, 2017

Featuring works by Josef Albers, Peter Downsbrough, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Allan McCollum, and Richard Serra

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2017

March 1, 2017
- March 5, 2017

 

 

 

For Another

September 10, 2016
- October 15, 2016

Featuring works by Allan McCollum, Claes Oldenburg, Liliana Porter, and Allen Ruppersberg  

Block Parts

June 18, 2016
- July 29, 2016

Featuring works by Josef Albers, Robert Barry, Michael Beatty, Mel Bochner, Ellsworth Kelly, Allan McCollum, Liliana Porter, Stephen Prina, Kate Shepherd, Richard Smith, and Ana Tiscornia

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2016

March 2, 2016
- March 6, 2016

Equal Dimensions

December 12, 2015
- January 30, 2016

Featuring works by Josef Albers, Richard Artschwager, Robert Barry, Mel Bochner, Peter Downsbrough, Erwin Heerich, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, Giulio Paolini, Liliana Porter, Stephen Prina, Kay Rosen, Robert Ryman, and Fred Sandback

Two/Each

October 24, 2015
- December 5, 2015

Featuring portraits by Robert Bauer, Liz Glynn, Hendrik Kerstens, Allan McCollum, Matt Saunders, John Stezaker, Jacques Villon, Two Anonymous American tintypes, and Two reproductions of Greek busts

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2015

March 3, 2015
- March 8, 2015

 

 

Apparent Forms

June 21, 2014
- July 25, 2014

Featuring works by Josef Albers, John Baldessari, Barbara Broughel, Tara Donovan, Barbara Kruger, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Allan McCollum, Liliana Porter, Kate Shepherd, Kiki Smith, Lawrence Weiner, and Ray Charles White

One Wall, One Work:
Allan McCollum

June 21, 2014
- July 25, 2014

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2014

March 5, 2014
- March 9, 2014

Clues

December 14, 2013
- February 1, 2014

Featuring works by John Baldessari, Robert Barry, Sophie Calle, Peter Downsbrough, Hendrik Kerstens, Allan McCollum, Stephen Prina, and Lorna Simpson

Allan McCollum
The Shapes Project: Perfect Couples

October 20, 2012
- November 24, 2012

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2012

March 7, 2012
- March 11, 2012

 PAR  PAR
S      E     T

January 28, 2012
- March 10, 2012

Featuring works by Josef Albers, Robert Barry, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Tara Donovan, Frank Egloff, Dan Flavin, On Kawara, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Kay Rosen, Ed Ruscha, and Fred Sandback

IN ON UNDER ABOVE AND WITH

January 23, 2010
- March 13, 2010

Featuring works by Christiane Baumgartner, Bernd & Hilla Becher, Frank Egloff, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, and Suara Welitoff

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2010

March 3, 2010
- March 7, 2010

Missing

January 17, 2009
- March 4, 2009

Featuring works by Barbara Broughel, Carrol Dunham, Joseph Grigely, Yayoi Kusama, Sol LeWitt, Allan McCollum, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Robin Rhode, Fred Sandback, Jonathan Seliger, and Sarah Sze

The Sum of Its Parts

September 2, 2008
- October 7, 2008

Featuring works by Mel Bochner, Daniel Buren, Tara Donovan, Tony Feher, Jenny Holzer, Allan McCollum, Roy McMackin, Julian Opie, Maurizio Pellegrin, Liliana Porter, and Suara Welitoff

Art Chicago 2008 Art Fair

April 24, 2008
- April 28, 2008

Allan McCollum:
The Shapes Project

March 1, 2008
- April 9, 2008

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Show 2008

January 19, 2008
- February 27, 2008

Art Dealers Association of America (ADAA) Art Fair

February 22, 2005
- February 28, 2005

Allan McCollum: Each and Every One of You

March 27, 2004
- May 5, 2004

The Armory Show 2003

March 7, 2003
- March 10, 2003

Portfolios by Josef Albers, Donald Judd, Sol LeWitt, Brice Marden, Allan McCollum and Bill Wheelock

January 19, 2002
- March 13, 2002

Allan McCollum:
The Small World Drawings

March 18, 2000
- April 26, 2000