{"secondaryobjectnumber":null,"periodterms":[],"creditline":"Museum Purchase, gift of the Advisory Council of the Princeton University Art Museum in honor of Susan M. Taylor, director, 2000-2008","caption":"Allan McCollum (born 1944, Los Angeles, CA; active New York, NY), from The Shapes Project, 2005–present. Digital prints with frames; 14.9 x 11.1 x 7.6 cm (each). Museum Purchase, gift of the Advisory Council of the Princeton University Art Museum in honor of Susan M. Taylor, director, 2000-2008 (2008-70.1-.144)","cultureterms":[{"id":2038492,"culture":"American"}],"type":"artobject","dimensionsproposed":"","terms":[{"id":2054256,"term":"prints","aatid":300041273,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2055663,"term":"busts","aatid":300047457,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2038492,"term":"American","aatid":300107956,"termtype":"Culture"},{"id":2095701,"term":"abstraction","aatid":300056508,"termtype":"Subject"},{"id":2095975,"term":"serial art","aatid":300121430,"termtype":"Classification"},{"id":2153031,"term":"digital imaging","aatid":300237903,"termtype":"Techniques"}],"geography":[],"dimensionelements":[{"element":"Overall","type":"Height","units":"centimeters","dimension":"14.92"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Width","units":"centimeters","dimension":"11.11"},{"element":"Overall","type":"Depth","units":"centimeters","dimension":"7.61"}],"markings":null,"accessionyear":"2008-01-01","newaccession":0,"makers":[{"id":1,"displayname":"Allan McCollum","displaydate":"born 1944, Los Angeles, CA; active New York, NY","datebegin":1944,"dateend":2100,"prefix":null,"suffix":null,"role":"Artist","displaymaker":"Allan McCollum, born 1944, Los Angeles, CA; active New York, NY","displayorder":1}],"datecomputed":2010,"signed":null,"restrictions":"Restricted","classification":"Prints","packages":[{"packageid":181691,"name":"CRS_2020_ART326_04_20"},{"packageid":181961,"name":"web_2020_MM"},{"packageid":182427,"name":"CRS_2020_ART214_FinalPapersProject"},{"packageid":182945,"name":"web_2020_MM_Jan_Multitudes"},{"packageid":220938,"name":"web_2000-2022printacquisitions"},{"packageid":197269,"name":"web_highlights -revised 2021"}],"catalograisonne":null,"classifications":[{"id":2095975,"classification":"serial art"},{"id":2054256,"classification":"prints"}],"exhibitions":[],"cultures":[],"primaryimage":["https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/TC2008-23-1-144_DET"],"displaytitle":"from The Shapes Project","displayculture":null,"displaymaker":"Allan McCollum, born 1944, Los Angeles, CA; active New York, NY","captionhtml":"Allan McCollum (born 1944, Los Angeles, CA; active New York, NY), from The Shapes Project, 2005–present. Digital prints with frames; 14.9 x 11.1 x 7.6 cm (each). Museum Purchase, gift of the Advisory Council of the Princeton University Art Museum in honor of Susan M. Taylor, director, 2000-2008 (2008-70.1-.144)","displaydate":"2005–present","medium":"Digital prints with frames","media":[{"id":72763,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/2008-70-1-144","isprimary":0,"rank":2,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM photo"},{"id":16764,"uri":"https://media.artmuseum.princeton.edu/iiif/3/collection/TC2008-23-1-144_DET","isprimary":1,"rank":1,"mediatypeid":1,"mediaviewtype":"(not assigned)","restrictions":"Restricted","caption":"PUAM Photo"}],"displayperiod":null,"extended_content":false,"campuscollections":"false","bibliography":[{"boilertext":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2008,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 68 (2009): p. 69-119.","citation":"\"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2008,\" Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 68 (2009): p. 69-119., pp. 75–76 (illus.)","date":2009,"id":974,"uri":"https://www.jstor.org/stable/25747109"},{"boilertext":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013)","citation":"Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collections (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Art Museum, 2013), p. 302","date":2013,"id":1994,"uri":"https://search.worldcat.org/title/865020505"}],"nowebuse":"False","periods":[],"department":"Modern and Contemporary Art","attribute_groups":[{"id":2199324,"term":"Art Since 1945","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199325,"term":"North American Art","termtype":"Collecting Area"},{"id":2199327,"term":"Prints and Drawings","termtype":"Collecting Area"}],"daterange":"A.D. 1945-present","dateend":2016,"depicted":[],"titles":[],"hasimage":"true","creditlinerepro":"© 2005, Allan McCollum","objectnumber":"2008-70.1-.144","inscribed":null,"texts":[{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Gallery Label","textentryhtml":"The 144 digital prints seen here represent a small portion of McCollum’s massive Shapes Project. Using the software program Adobe Illustrator and vector graphics, which employ a series of mathematical commands to generate images, McCollum created a system that could produce nearly thirtyone billion unique abstract shapes. An exercise in numerical incomprehensibility, the project has the potential to result in more individual shapes than the nearly eleven billion people that are estimated to make up the world’s peak population around the year 2100.","remarks":"MM rotation January 2020"},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Handbook Entry","textentryhtml":"\r\nAt once astute and irreverent, Allan McCollum’s work ironizes the systems of production and reproduction that dominate life in the twenty-first century. The 144 digital prints seen here, displayed like items in a supermarket, comprise a small portion of McCollum’s massive The Shapes Project. An exercise in absurdity, The Shapes Project will result in as many shapes as there will be people in the middle of the twenty-first century. Using Adobe Illustrator, the artist has thus far created 214,000,000 shapes, each one unique; the production of some shapes he has outsourced to other individuals. In addition to monoprints, sculptures, and wall reliefs, they have been translated into non-art formats, including gifts, awards, emblems, toys, and souvenirs. McCollum first rose to prominence in the late 1970s as a member of the Pictures Generation, a diverse group of artists who questioned notions of rarity, authorship, and originality, the criteria against which value in the art world is determined. ","remarks":null},{"texttype":"Online","textpurpose":"Provenance","textentryhtml":"[Barbara Krakow Gallery, Boston, Massachussetts], sold; to Princeton University Art Museum, 2008.","remarks":"As per invoice in curatorial file. AP."}],"datebegin":2005,"sortnumber":"2008 70 1 144","published_date":"2026-03-31 02:39:30.288036","objectid":55511,"dimensions":"each: 14.9 x 11.1 x 7.6 cm (5 7/8 x 4 3/8 x 3 in.)","on_view":false}