Small, Medium, or Large?

Allan McCollum is a contemporary American artist whose work is not only aesthetically grand and intriguing, but is rich with social and cultural commentary concerning the way we experience art in society. That being said, his work suggests no personal emotional expression, but rather, exemplifies "art from without." He currently lives and works in New York, crafting large quantities of small-scale hand-made collectible objects that are slightly unique from each other. Individual Works is a series of installations that point to the repetitiveness and sameness of mass-production, suggesting commentary concerning consumption and the way people find meaning in objects in American culture, subsequently redirecting viewer’s expectations of artworks featured in exhibition spaces.

Over Ten Thousand Individual Works, 1987/88. Enamel on cast Hydrocal. 2" diameter, lengths variable, each unique.

By using a mechanical process and shaping each object with hand-cast plaster, McCollum ensures that there will be no object that is identical to another, but they will look the same when grouped together. This commitment to creating exclusivity is quite the feat, considering he will include circa 10,000 objects in a single installation. The ordinary objects he references range from bottle caps, salt shakers, spoons, earrings, candy molds and pencil sharpeners, items that are encountered and used in daily life. He finds these items anywhere and everywhere – both in public venues like supermarkets, and in private households. This project transcends the meaning of the symbolic objects and addresses psychological notions of how people make sense of big numbers.

The viewer's perception of large quantities of objects is disturbed, as they are challenged to make distinctions between individual objects and reject the assumption that they are all the same just because they are grouped together in such a way. In this way, McCollum disrupts his audience's expectations for the presentation of objects, subsequently provoking questions that concern society on a larger scale rather than his own emotional or personal struggles. This work communicates the artist's search for inspiration from "without" himself, and not from "within," as he communicates ideas and poses questions about individuality in a world of masses.