Ten years ago, with the group of works titled Surrogate Paintings and Plaster Surrogates, Allan McCollum worked out a fundamental approach which has formed the basis for his artistic development up to this day. [1] His starting point was the intention to find a sign which includes the significant characteristics of the total quantity of all pictures in general. These considerations were the result of the insight into the inconsistency of the coherences of art production in relation to culture at large and the function it fulfills. This function is determined by the fact that in the economic system of a consumer society, the artwork becomes a commodity, which in the last analysis does not mean anything else but a functionalizing of the art production under those conditions which are also valid for any other product in mass culture.

Hence, the term "surrogate" as a denomination for this sign is more than a title for a work. A "surrogate" is the reduction of a substance to its essential characteristics which the concentrate recognizably can release without adopting the specific consistency of the original substance. Accordingly, a picture consists of the external features of frame, mat, and picture portion, disregarding the formal and substantial structures which define certain qualities of view and contexts of meaning. Used by McCollum, the term gains a programmatic meaning for his conception clearly to concentrate the functional aspects of a work and its production in an art object. The first series of picture-objects which were created under this precondition between 1978 and 1981, were entitled Surrogate Paintings. They were made of wood and museum board and monochromically painted in different colors. The clear features of the pictures, i.e.frame, mat, and picture portion, are employed as paradigmatic structures, though the monochrome color neglects the textural qualities and depicts the action of painting as a working process without any significant references with regard to a gestic-actionistic way of painting. The central picture portion as the actual site of substantial meaning is equally treated and thus equated with the functional picture carrier: it appears as a blank. Consequently, the traditional hierarchy of the formal structure of a picture is cancelled. Parallel to the negation of differences between handicraft and artistic work in the production of a picture, the valuation of art works by however authorized advocates of cultural values on the basis of their personal criteria is rejected.

The autonomy of McCollum's picture-objects results from their identity as signs, this identity being developed in the context of specific exhibition conditions. The perception of the Surrogates as signs representing pictures basically is independent from the form of their presentation. In early exhibitions in 1979/80,for instance, they were installed analogous to a prevailing practice of presentation which conceded the single object an adequate space of its own. Yet, this led to misunderstandings in the perception of their conceptual context, because the objects' character as signs was missed. Consequently, McCollum developed installation concepts which excluded these misunderstandings. These concepts were in contradiction to the "modern" practice of presentation in museums and galleries in that they referred to the model of historical picture galleries which nevertheless still is exemplary for the presentation in today's department store culture. That means, McCollum proceeded to hang his Surrogate Paintings in larger groups and in a relatively orderless way, side by side and one beneath the other; by his increase of quantity and the effect of repetition, he intended likewise to interpret this exaggerated idea of an installation as a sign and to exclude any kind of view which emphasizes the importance of the single picture. A second step was a qualitative extension of the Surrogates' structures, in the beginning only with regard to their appearances. The observable alteration was created in that McCollum, beside the monochrome works, produced a variant in different colors in which the frame - first in different shades of brown, later also in shades of grey and gold -, the white mat, and the now always monochrome black picture portion are contrasted with one another. In the foreground, this produces a more realistic appearance, but at the same time increasingly confuses the viewer, who by the repetition of the often incalculable line, respectively accumulation of almost identical "pictures", finds himself exposed to a tension between work and installation which his schemes of perception and reception, well-tried in many exhibitions, cannot solve. Here, these schemes are reduced to the desire to ascertain differences in order to find identity. The installation of Surrogates provokes an attitude which contradicts a contemplative viewing of art and reaches the behavior patterns of the consumer who is used to distinguish himself by choosing a certain product, and the criterion for his choice is the brand rather than the better quality - a criterion which is equally valid for purchasing an artwork as for buying a polo-shirt.

In 1980, parallel to the development of the Surrogate Paintings with black centers, McCollum created a series of drawings which mean more than a graphic transformation of his visual ideas. These works on paper, entitled Glossies, mark a transition of some consequence for the further development of the Surrogates and the reflection of photography in which he is interested because of its function as a mechanical method of reproduction, and which stimulates him because of the visual quality of its surface structure.

In the Glossies, this affinity for photography manifested itself before McCollum actually began to use photography as a medium in the Perpetual Photos. The Glossies are drawings, rectangular forms applied with black ink and water colors, which fill up the sheets parallel to the edges except for a small margin. The hand written texture of the drawings identifies each sheet as a unique work - comparable to the Surrogates. Finally, the whole paper is covered with an adhesive plastic laminate which gives it the shiny surface of a photograph. Thus, the drawing as original artistic expression is employed as a sign for photography like the Surrogates as objects stand for paintings. An artistic medium is used not to depict another one, but to represent it; thus, the distinction between the original art work and mechanically multiplied replicas is deliberately obscured, respectively suspended. In this respect, the Glossies mark a decisive transition to the Plaster Surrogates which McCollum began to create in 1982.

The difference between the Plaster Surrogates and the Surrogate Paintings lies in the employment of a mechanical production process instead of a handicraft one. The picture-objects are no longer made of wood and museum board, one by one, but are completely cast in plaster in one piece. McCollum continues both variants, the monochrome one as well as the differentiated one. In addition to the simply practical aspect of casting, the material, plaster, also has some importance, since it is the preferred material for the production of replicas of artifacts, as they are offered by many department stores but also by museums in their souvenir-shops. The mechanical procedure is not important for the perception of the Plaster Surrogates, but it is a factor in the ambivalent character of its function which determines the meaning of McCollum's work. The mechanical production, by means of molds from which any number of casts can be produced, depreciates the superior rating of artistic work in that it equates it with that definition of work which underlies the mass production of consumer goods. The personal meaning of work and one's relationship to it is regarded as equivalent in so far as one proceeds from the result, the product as a commodity, which is only produced to be sold.

Around the same time, in 1981/82, when in the Plaster Surrogates the reflection and employment of the mechanical production proceedings gained decisive importance for his work, McCollum began to take photographs of pictures in magazines and of telecasts in which paintings could be seen in the background. These photographs of pictures in pictures are materials which in the context of the further development of the Surrogates are used in different ways. This differentiation depends on the visual quality of the pictures which, in connection with the mediated visual information and scenic action taking priority, are perceived as more or less accidentally present, respectively placed decoration. That means, these pictures are art works which as decorative equipment of an ambience do not claim any importance and cannot be identified by sight. This concealment of their identity through the mere functional implication for a superior pictorial context is what McCollum is interested in. Surrogates on Location is his title for those photographs on which paintings can be seen which look exactly like his Surrogates with black centers. These photographs do not have the character of art works, they are presented as 'pseudodidactic' means in connection with installations of Surrogates, used as references of perception or retroactive provenance. On the one hand, they demonstrate the importance of the picture - as basic constituent of our culture - for the furnishing of living space and social environment, based on the original as well as existential need to visually acquire and preserve personally experienced reality. At the same time, they also document the visual flood of stimuli caused by the modern media, which constantly diminishes the importance of the single picture and lowers the willingness to perceive and reflect. They are metaphors of disrespect for the picture's identity, whatever aesthetic or substantial quality may define this identity. McCollum intends to deny this dependent relationship between artistic and functional importance in that he describes it as a function of the socio-specific culture at large and problematizes it in connection with the value of individual productivity. That means, artistic production has to be made a concern as part of our culture under its functional aspects of sense, as a production which proceeds under the same conditions as industrial mass production.

On the basis of comparable photographs, McCollum simultaneously developed the group of Perpetual Photos which he showed for the first time in the Gallery Cash/Newhouse in New York in 1984. They are based on similar photographs taken from telecasts like the Surrogates on Location. In this case, the paintings in the background still show vestiges of structure of a pictorial identity, though these structures cannot be concretized. These rudimentary paintings are focused in on the photograph and then blown up. Thus, the Perpetual Photos reinstall the identity of a painting without knowing its original aesthetic appearance or contents. In this connection, it seems to be important to point out that any Perpetual Photo is not printed in edition but as a unique print, and that the snapshot representing the scenic provenance is actually physically attached to the verso. With these pictures, McCollum projects a most complex illustration of his conception to find signs for artworks, signs which themselves own an individual uniqueness which aims at enabling the viewer to experience the subjective identity of the picture only through its reinstallation into an exhibition context. Simultaneously, the double employment of mechanical reproduction media intensifies the reduction of artistic action to a concept of work which is not sited in a reservation of freedom from social conventions, but is related to work as efficiency, its social relevance being based on the confirmation of handed down power structures. Since l981, McCollum has been working on prototypes for a group of works which concretizes and heightens the analysis and interpretation of the relationship between artistic work and the development of culture at large in an essential aspect. Whereas the Surrogates and the Perpetual Photos project signs for the functional identity of the picture as object- i. e., formally, they represent one artistic medium by another and thus objectify the view of artistic work - the Perfect Vehicles directly refer to the connection of art object and commodity object. One prototype was created and entitledMaquette for a Sign - an object in form of a vase, made of solid hydrostone. Consequently its "opening" for the incorporation of what it should contain as a vessel is closed. The nullification of its utility value is obvious, but this obviousness did not satisfy McCollum, because the nullification means an alteration of the functional structure of the vase which injures the intended sign-character of the object. The final form, as it was presented for the first time in 1986 in several gallery exhibitions, has a cap as "closure" for the virtual vessel. The appearance of the vase refers to ancient objects which as commodity objects of a bygone culture have met with an increased appreciation in our time. Thus, the Perfect Vehicles keep the tension between visible utility and functionlessness of the art object which is supported by the exhibition context in museums and galleries. All Perfect Vehicles are colored and McCollum uses paints of different consistencies, enamels and acrylics. The coloring is varied, most of the objects are monochrome within a broad spectrum (analogous to the colored Surrogates), yet some are polychrome, i. e. the several sectors of the hexagonal form are painted alternately in two colors.

Similar to the Surrogates, the principle of repetition is an essential factor for the installation of the Perfect Vehicles, for which McCollum has developed two conceptions. In the beginning, they were placed together in groups of five or six, always in different colors, and on pedestals of the same height. The co-ordination of colors was variable, contrasting figurations appeared as often as harmonizing ones or shades of a single color. The spatial installation of these sets again aims at producing an ironic-exaggerated atmosphere which afflicts the viewer and makes him feel insecure because of its insisting reference to almost equal objects. This insecurity is produced by the refusal of the possibility to choose between alternative offers. For especially the option between alternatives is an important factor on which the consumer society is built up. It suggests to the individual the illusion of the freedom to define his individuality himself and thus find his identity. This fictitious space of freedom appears to be blocked in view of this well-ordered assortment of perfectly styled objects. In the other form of installation, in which McCollum spreads the Perfect Vehicles all over the space, one by one and on pedestals of different heights, the depressing and grotesque experience becomes incalculable amidst an oversupply of fabulous art objects which obtrude themselves as perfect surrogates for the viewer's ego.

During the 43rd Venice Biennal, within the scope of Aperto '88', McCollum presented for the first time a variant of the Perfect Vehicles enlarged to a height of 2 meters, with which he does not only relate this context to the viewer's space. With the enlargement of scale, he rather aims at an extended conception of space which, beyond the architectural constraint of the gallery-ware-house, includes the concrete space of experience of the outer world in the reflection, the outer world in which the art work more and more has been destined to fulfill a representative function for the demands of public or private protagonists of a conomist cultural policy.

In his recent work, McCollum develops a strategy which differs from his former procedure. The Individual Works do not refer to forms of expression such as paintings or sculptures. This group of works comprises more than 10.000 single pieces which all have different, individual forms. They are "Biblelots", functionless, small objects, composed of tokens from everyday commodities, cast in plaster, and all painted in a synthetic looking turquoise-blue. They are evenly arranged on a sort of enormous table, the dimensions of the table are adjusted to the respective exhibition room. To make them, McCollum uses about 150 different parts, out of which he takes 8 at the most to assemble one object, which means, there is a seemingly endless number of possible combinations.

Being confronted with this phenomenon of a hardly conceivable multiplicity, the viewer feels similarly confused as vis-a-vis the Surrogates or the Perfect Vehicles:their identity is reduced to a minimum by the repetition of a quasi-identical form-structure - via a superficial uniformity, the viewer advances to the individual identities of the objects. Viewing the Individual Works, this progress of perception is reversed: the obvious and actual individuality engenders the desire to state common characteristics. But the objects do not satisfy this desire. Their only common basis is the production process which itself refers to the conformitys of artistic and industrial work, since both serve the mechanisms of the consumer society, to which art is subjected, too. Thus, the Individual Works function as signs for work which is differently valued in our society, though the products are commercialized according to the same economic laws which can hardly be influenced or controlled by the producers.

Frankfurt, Germany
1988