Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist whose work often blurs the boundary between unique artifacts and mass production. Interested in how objects attain cultural value, McCollum’s Surrogate Paintings are uniquely produced yet intended to seem manufactured, questioning both the process of labor and the value of authorship. Employing plaster, rubber, and cement, he has created sculptures resembling framed paintings, fossilized bones, antique urns, and household objects. “When I first decided to be an artist, I was interested in exploring selfreferential angles on how our culture defines a ‘painting,’” he reflected. “I quickly realized that a painting is ultimately defined by its context. And all contexts are within other contexts within other contexts, so I’m always drawn into an ever-expanding idea of contexts.”

Today, the artist’s works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., the Fotomuseum Winterthur in Switzerland, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.