Allan McCollum

Born in 1944, California, USA

Lives and works in New York, USA

Allan McCollum is best known for adapting methods of mass production to create large series of art objects that explore how we derive personal and public meaning from a largely standardised world. As an example, all of the drawings in The Arts Club’s collection of ‘One Hundred and Twenty Drawings’ are created using variations of only two basic graphic elements: 90 degree arcs and straight lines. Combinations of these elements are cut into hundreds of different plastic templates that can then be paired in many thousands of different ways. The drawings are produced entirely by hand, using artists’ drawing pencils on museum board. Although they are stylistically consistent, looked at closely it is evident that each piece is unique – much like a fingerprint or face. In this way we like to think of his work as an interpretation of portraiture.

Allan McCollum has had over 100 solo exhibitions at museums worldwide, and his work features in over 70 museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim in New York.