On March 28, 2014, in honor of the National Gallery of Art’s acquisition of his Collection of Four Hundred and Eighty Plaster Surrogates (1982/1989), Allan McCollum discusses the origin of his plaster surrogates and surrogate paintings. McCollum is interested in the context in which paintings are shown and the idea of a painting being part of a diverse set of objects considered collectibles. Applying strategies of mass production to handmade objects, he has spent nearly 50 years exploring how works of art achieve personal and public meaning in a world largely constituted within the manners of industrial production. This interview takes place on the East Building Mezzanine following McCollum’s participation in the Elson Lecture Series.