{"data":{"id":"4682","type":"artist","attributes":{"id":4682,"topgoose_id":1383,"tms_id":4682,"display_name":"Allan McCollum","sort_name":"McCollum Allan","display_date":"1944–","begin_date":"1944","end_date":"0","biography":"\u003cp\u003eAllan McCollum, who began exhibiting in\nLos Angeles in the late 1960s, sought to\nescape the legacy of formalism—the theory\nthat helped make Abstract Expressionism\nand Color Field painting the dominant\nstyles of postwar American art. Inspired\nby the performative and conceptual aspects\nof movements like Fluxus, and by the\nstandardization and modularity of industrial\nproduction, he attempted to make an\nobject that would embody only the idea\nof painting. McCollum wanted to show that\ncultural conventions and contexts, rather\nthan any qualities inherent in the work itself,\nmade a painting what it was.\n\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1978 McCollum assembled the\nfirst of his “surrogates” from wood and\nmat board, then painted the center of this\npicture-like object black. He went on to\nmake many of these surrogates, initially\ncrafting each one by hand; in 1982 he began\ncasting them in plaster, which allowed\nfor a larger production volume. For his 1983\nexhibition at the Marian Goodman Gallery\nin New York, he filled the walls with hundreds\nof plaster surrogates. The exhibition\nperfectly illustrated the participation of art\nin a system of cultural rules dictating how\nit is made, displayed, viewed, and sold.\nFabricated by McCollum and his assistants,\nworks such as \u003ca href=\"/collection/works/12925\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eCollection of Two Hundred\nand Eighty-eight Plaster Surrogates\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/a\u003e\u003cem\u003e\n\u003c/em\u003erepresent a type of labor that is not “artistic”\non its face but anonymous and communal.\nMcCollum has said that “a painting is\nwhat it is because it is a convention. It exists\nprecisely because the culture makes\na place for it.”\u003c/p\u003e","on_view":false,"artport":false,"biennial":true,"collection":true,"ulan_id":"500118788","wikidata_id":"Q2837749","created_at":"2017-08-30T16:22:43.000-04:00","updated_at":"2026-04-11T07:02:25.473-04:00","links":{"artworks":"/api/artists/4682/artworks","exhibitions":"/api/artists/4682/exhibitions"}}}}