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"While most of the art world is in thrall to the one-off masterwork, Allan McCollum has built a practice that celebrates production on a mass scale. The Brooklyn artist's acclaimed projects tend to feature sweeping groups of handmade objects\u2014all similar but not quite the same. These striking compositions play with viewers' assumptions about uniqueness, offering a reminder that humanity, for all its vast scope, is composed of individuals.\n\nOne of his breakthroughs, the 1980s \"Plaster Surrogates\" series, comprises what look like scores of monochromatic paintings but are in fact plaster casts. Years later he conceived \"Individual Works,\" 30,000 diminutive sculptures based on bottle caps, knobs, and other household items. \"My original idea was to sell them one at a time for about $25,\" he says. His art dealer talked him out of it, and a third of the series was acquired New York's Museum of Modern Art.\n\nPinterestFacebook\n\nOn September 4, Petzel Gallery in Manhattan will unveil McCollum's latest iteration of \"The Shapes Project.\" Started in 2005, this staggering ongoing series endeavors to make a unique form for every person on Earth (taking into account both the planet's estimated peak population of 9.5 billion and reincarnated souls). To do so, he has devised a system of simple drawings that can be combined in 31 billion configurations. So far he has produced some 28,000 shapes, in media ranging from paper silhouettes to copper cookie cutters.\n\nPinterestFacebook\n\nThe most recent batch, called \"Perfect Couples,\" renders the forms in color for the first time. Cut from wood, the new shapes are painted a vivid hue and then affixed in pairs to gray panels. \"I wanted to humanize them and do something more playful,\" he says at his studio. Singling out two examples, he adds, \"That's a little boy who loves his mother. Those are two sisters.\"\n\nThe project requires math, production savvy, and a tolerance for tedium. Even he has his limits, however. Knowing he won't be able to finish the work in his lifetime, McCollum remarks with enthusiasm, \"I hope it continues after I'm gone.\""^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/allan-mccollum-petzel-galler-new-york>