He was born in Los Angeles, California in 1994 and now lives and works in New York City. He has spent over thirty years exploring how objects achieve public and personal meaning in a world constituted in mass production, focusing most recently on collaborations with small community historical society museums in different parts of the world. His first solo exhibition was in 1970 in Southern California, where he as represented throughout the early 70s in Los Angeles by the Nicholas Wilder Gallery, until it’s closing in the late 70s, and subsequently by the Claire S. Copley Gallery, also in Los Angeles. After appearing in group exhibitions at the Pasadena Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, his first New York showing was in an exhibition at the Sidney Janis Gallery, in 1972. He was included in the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial Exhibition in 1975, and moved to New York later that same year.

ln 1978, he became known for his series Surrogate Paintings, which were shown in solo exhibitions in New York at Julian Pretto & Co., Artistspace, and 112 Workshop (subsequentIy known as White Columns), in 1979. ln 1980, he was given his first solo exhibition in Europe, at the Yvon Lambert Gallery, in Paris, France, and in that same year began exhibiting his work at the Marian Goodman Gallery in New York, where he introduced his series Plaster Surrogares in a large solo exhibition in 1983. McCoIlum began showing his work with the Lisson Gallery in London, England, in 1985, where he has had a number of solo exhibitions since. ln 1987 he joined the John Weber Gallery in New York, where he continued to show his work until 1996; subsequently, he began working with the Friedrich Petzel Gallery, also in New York.

Solo retrospectives of Allan McCoIlum's work have been mounted at the Musée d'Art Moderne, Villeneuve d'Ascq, Lille, France (1998); the Sprengel Museum, Hannover. Germany (1995-96); the Serpentine Gallery, London (1990); the Rooseum Center for Contemporary Art, Malmo, Sweden (1990); IVAM Centre del Carme, Valencia, Spain (1990); Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum. Eindhoven, The Netherlands (1989), and Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany (1988). He has produced public art projects in both the United States and Europe, and his works are held in over 60 major art museum collections around the world.

McCoIlum‘s work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, such as: “Singular Forms," The Guggenheim Museum, New York (2004); “The Museum as Muse” The Museum of Modem Art, New York (1999); "L'lnforme: Mode d'EmpIoi," Centre national d'art et de culture Georges Pompidou, Paris, France (1996); “Objects of Desire: The Modern Still Life, 'The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1996); “Allegories of Modemism," The Museum of Modern Art, New York (1992); "The 1991 Carnegie International," The Carnegie Museum of Art. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1991); “The 1991 Sydney Biennale, 'Sydney. Australia (1991); 'Image World: Art and Media Culture," The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (1989); ‘A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation,’ The Museum of Contemporary Art. Los Angeles (1989); “Aperto”, the 43rd Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy (1988), “lmplosion: et postmodernt perspektiv”. Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; and “Ailleurs et Autrement”, MA number of interesting writers have published texts on Allan McCoIlum's work, including Rosalind Krauss. Craig Owens, Hal Foster, Andrea Fraser, Anne Rorimer, Lynne Cooke, Lars Nittve, and Thomas Lawson. McCoIlum has occasionally interviewed and written essays on fellow artists tor books and catalogs.