When “Erin Shirreff: Permanent Drafts” opens at Milwaukee Art Museum on Friday, May 30, it will mark the most comprehensive look at the work of the Montreal-based artist in a decade.
The show, which includes more than 40 recent works by the sculptor, photographer and video artist, also has installations specific to MAM.
It will all be on view through Sunday, Aug. 31 in the Herzfeld Center for Photography and Media Arts on the museum’s lower level.
“While photographs increasingly lose trust as conveyors of knowledge, Erin Shirreff’s work, which dwells in the place between image and object, has only become more relevant,” says exhibition curator Kristen Gaylord, who is MAM’s Herzfeld Curator of Photography and Media Arts.
“I have long admired her thoughtful approach to the generative potential of representation, and it has been a joy to collaborate with her in bringing this wide-ranging presentation of her recent work to Milwaukee.”
The show is an intriguing one with works that all share a common thread in that the artist loves to tinker with source material, such as making sculptures in foam, but then casting them in bronze, and photographing works and cutting up and reassembling parts of the photographs into new wholes.
The result are three-dimensional works alongside series of photographs that initially appear to be images of that work, but upon closer examination might not be.
Shapes reoccur in sculptures, photographs, prints and even collaged work.
Some of the most strikingly beautiful work are large-scale images that from from a distance appear to be framed paintings. But get up close and you'll see that they are cut-out shapes, often leaning on one another, in a shadow box ... paper sculptures, as the names of the works convey.
In one gallery later in the show, there are photographs of monumentally scaled sculptures but are actually chopped up images of smaller works that have been reassembled to become photographs of sculptures that don't actually exist.
You may find yourself, like me, comparing images to find connections until you realize there may often not be any beyond these similar shapes.
Don't miss the video at the end in which shapes move across the screen as if on a conveyor belt, often appearing to be drawn onto the screen as they come into view.
Shirreff will visit MAM on Thursday, Aug. 7 to give a talk in Lubar Auditorium, and will return on Thursday, Aug. 28 to take part in the Haberman Local Luminaries program.
Born in 1975 and trained as a sculptor, Shirref’s work shatters boundaries and, Gaylord notes, “explores the gap between images and the things they picture. (She) understands photography as a significant but imperfect means of conveying three-dimensional objects.
"Her work focuses on the reproductions through which we often access art, inviting audiences to consider how each of us sees and interprets the world around us. Shifting across time, material, and dimension, her art rewards in-person engagement and slow, close looking.”
The Bradley Collection of Modern Art: A Bold Vision for Milwaukee
Milwaukee Art Museum has also announced that it will mark the 50th anniversary of the donation of the Bradley Collection with a new show, "The Bradley Collection of Modern Art: A Bold Vision for Milwaukee."
The exhibition will move about a quarter of the collection downstairs into the Baker/Rowland Galleries in the Quadracci Pavilion, from Sept. 26 until Jan. 18, 2026.
Peg Bradley donated about 400 20th century works to the museum, including pieces by Georgia O'Keeffe, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko and others.
I never miss a chance to get up close to works by Gabriele Munter, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Fernand Leger, Raoul Dufy and others. The Bradley Collection is my favorite part of the museum, so I'll be excited to see familiar works in a new setting.
Brush up on your Bradley history with this look at Peg's personal "apartment" that used to be in the museum and this story about the building that housed her Zita clothing business.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
