Allan McCollum

b. Los Angeles, CA, USA, 4 August 1944. Lives and works in New York, USA

Allan McCollum is one of the most original and influential post-Conceptual American artists alive today. His work is repeatedly characterised by his use of mass-production to create a vast quantity of unique objects. Whether comprised of sculptures, drawings, or photographs, each of his works form “collections”, which range in number from a few objects, to several thousand. McCollum’s decision to create series of works reflects his desire to subvert the traditional criteria according to which artwork, if it is to be any value, must be rare. However, despite the apparent mass production of his work, he preserves the uniqueness of each individual element, distinguishing it from the whole by means of subtle variations.

Today, McCollum’s works feature in the collections of some of the most prestigious art museums in the world including, in Paris, the Pompidou Centre; in New York, MoMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art; in Geneva, MAMCO; and, in Turin, the Castello di Rivoli. Numerous solo exhibitions have also been dedicated to his artwork, notably at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1990, the Sprengel Museum in Hanover in 1995, the MAMCO in Geneva in 2006, and the ICA of Miami in 2021, to mention but a few.