Artist Biography

Born in 1975 in Kelowna, British Columbia (Canada) Lives and work in New York city BFA, University of Victoria (1998) MFA, Yale University School of Art (2005) For an artist in the early stage of her career—her work has been on the commercial market for less than a decade—the artist has quite an enticing CV. She has had exhibitions in the most important museums and institutions in the USA and in Europe, in group shows and solo, in addition to having exhibited in commercial galleries that have a notable reputation for promoting new talents (e.g. Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin at White Cube, Mark Bradford at Sikkema Jenkin & Co., Takashi Murakami at Marianne Boesky). Her work is also part of permanent collections in a handful of the world’s most prestigious museums, which is extremely rare for an artist who has been exhibiting for less than 10 years. Exhibitions: Institutions Kunsthalle Basel*, Guggenheim Museum (New York), Collection Zabludowicz (London), Fondazione Prada (Milan), Fondation Francois Pinault (Venice), MoMA (New York), Albright‐ Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo)*, Pinakothek der Moderne (Munich), Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston)*, Dallas Museum of Art, Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art (Philadelphia)* Exhibitions: Commercial galleries Blain/Southern (London), White Cube (London)*, Marian Goodman (Paris), Hauser and Wirth (New York), Sikkema Jenkins & Co. (New York)*, Marianne Boesky (New York) *Solo exhibition Public collections Centre Pompidou, Dallas Museum of Art, Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston), Los Angeles Contemporary Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago), MoMA (New York), Guggenheim Museum (New York)

Reputation

Despite her achievements to date, the artist remains little known. She is unknown on the secondary market (two lots in auction, both in 2016), which could change quickly if the artist continues to produce and exhibit at the best institutions and galleries. Her popularity among the general public is lacking: below is the analysis of popularity for the search of “Erin Shirreff” on Google since 2014 (in blue), with searches made

for “Rachel Howard” (another young artist whose work is sold at Blain Southern) as a point of comparison (in red):

(Source: Google trends) Another comparative: on Instagram, a highly visual network greatly valued by contemporary art enthusiasts, an analysis of 200 mentions of the hashtag #erinshirreff as well as 200 mentions of the hashtag #rachelhoward since 2015, show that Erin Shirreff is generating a lot more activity (24,537 likes vs. 12,520; 2,900,000 impressions vs. 875,000). This likely reflects the fact that Erin Shirreff exhibits more often than Rachel Howard; however, these statistics are surprising since Howard is the most established of the two artists, and as a painter, she produces on a medium that is generally considered more accessible than Erin Shirreff’s photography or sculpture. Hashtag #erinshirreff on Instagram since 2015

Hashtag #rachelhoward on Instagram since 2015

(Source: hashtagtracking)

What is most striking is Erin Shirreff’s solid reputation among professional critics. Her work and exhibitions have been mentioned by the most influential critics in The New York Times (Roberta Smith, Carol Vogel),

The Wall Street Journal (Kelly Crow), Financial Times (Jackie Wullschlager), The New Yorker, The Independent, New York Magazine, and in specialized publications such as Artinfo, Frieze, Artforum, Art in America, ARTNews, etc. Overtime, such critical validation in addition to the artist’s presence in the best institutions and collections helps to maintain the interest of collectors and drive the market for the artist’s work.

Work Categories and Pricing

The artist works in photography, sculpture, and video. Sometimes, she creates an interplay between these various media in the same work. For example, she produces and photographs sculptural maquettes before assembling, combining and expanding different images in sets that can be wall-hung. Or, she hand-cuts paper scraps (just like Matisse or Hans Arp), which are translated into steel sheets, vertically arranged on a rod as a sculpture. Her videos combine hundreds of photographic images that are projected onto improvised structures. Shirreff’s works often feature an abstract aspect, but the formal aesthetic conceals an often paradoxical relationship between medium, space and perception. The result is a production that is very complex to categorize, which can be an asset, because the works will not necessarily be restricted by the category limits (in terms of pricing, for example), but may prove problematic for collectors who prefer paintings that look like a painting, photographs that look like a photograph, and so on. However, we believe that this “hybrid” production method is very important in the development of contemporary art, and represents a great opportunity in terms of market. Artists like Tauba Auerbach, Sterling Ruby, Dianna Molzan or Petra Cortright are examples of artists that apply a similar approach, although they use other forms of media. While her works often combine elements from various mediums, her projects can be grouped into three basic categories: photography, sculpture and video. We tried to define the pricing of her works on the primary market by addressing several galleries in the United States, Canada and in Europe. First, we would like to point out that the offer is extremely limited—most of the galleries we contacted had no works of the artist for sale. Photography

Here are some examples of photographs from the Relief series (2015). These are photographic prints, mounted and framed in “relief” rather than flat, creating an atypical sculptural effect. They are quite large (182.9 x 106.7 cm) and produced in limited prints (edition of 4). A few are currently available for approximately US$24,000.

In comparison, the only works of the artist made available in auction are works composed of several photographs, smaller than those of the Relief series, with a comparable print run (edition of 3 or 4). Monograph (2011), a group of six photographs, obtained a price of US$28,463 at Phillips (London), on October 6, against a presale estimate of US$12,650-$18,975. Signatures (2010), which consists of four photographs, sold for US$16,889, once again at Phillips (London), on April 13, against a presale estimate of US$11,378-$17,067. Here is an example of the Shirreff’s photographs sold at Phillips (Monograph):

Except for a few works from the Relief series and the cyanotype (mentioned in the next section), we have not found any other photographs of the artist currently on sale.

Sculptures

Some of the artist’s sculptures are currently available for approximately US$34-$38,000. They are part of the Catalogue series (2016) and are produced from pigment coated hard plaster (hydrostone). These are unique pieces, which have to be wall-hung. We believe that this series is less important than the sculptures of the Drop series (2015) exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 2015 and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo in 2016, but we have not found examples of this series currently on sale. It should also be noted that the latter are generally larger than the works of the Catalogue series, and are made of more durable materials (mostly steel sheets).

Vidéo

Like many video works, Erin Shirreff’s videos are much less appealing in terms of valuation potential. We did not find any video work by the artist for sale. It is mainly institutions (museums and other public collections) that buy this type of work. Here is an excerpt of a work from 2010, UN (edition of 3), bought by the Guggenheim Museum of New York: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrpVLUDuo1Q

The Cyanotype Series

The work presented by Blain | Southern, Box light, cross (2015) is part of a series of large-scale unique pieces called “cyanotype photograms”. Cyanotype is an old monochrome photographic printing process (developed in the 1840s) which produces a “Prussian blue” or “cyan blue” print. In this work series, the artist manipulates the contact of UV rays and exposure time to create images from the shadow created by the sculptures in her studio, which are gradually revealed by the photographic process. The result, printed on linen over canvas and wall-hung, evokes the notion of pictorial abstraction while recalling the shapes and lines of the artist’s sculptures. In the course of our research, we have only identified half a dozen of these large-scale works (243.8 x 243.8 cm), which were exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston in 2015 and the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, 2016. We know that the latter even acquired one of the works. Here are some photographs:

We believe these are probably among the artist’s most accessible and important works. They are accessible because of their colour scheme and abstract painting quality (in terms of composition and media), and they are important due to their size, production method, and the fact that they have been exhibited in public institutions.

We know that two of these works are currently available in galleries. The first, Box light, cross (2015), is available at Blain | Southern for US$45,000 plus taxes, and the second, View, front and back (2015), was offered to us by a New York gallery for US$38,250 plus taxes. Here is the picture of the latter (the dimensions are equal):