Untitled
Artist
Adam Shirley
(American, born 1970)
Date2012
MediumSteel
Dimensions15 × 14 × 56 in. (38.1 × 35.6 × 142.2 cm)
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of the artist, 2020
Object numberUAC6696
DescriptionDetroiter Adam Shirley trained as a metalsmith at College for Creative Studies (BFA) and subsequently attended Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA) majoring in sculpture. Steel became his primary medium and “ordinary objects” (the title of a one person show in 2016) his key subject. Simple, minimal cups, bowls, bottles, boxes, and even linens executed in steel, often displayed on steel shelves and tables fabricated by the artist, define his vision. Notably, when Shirley describes the process of designing and producing his handmade shapes and vessels he emphasizes that two-dimensional imagery plays a formative role in making three-dimensional objects. For him, the spare compositions of Giorgio Morandi, a twentieth-century Italian still-life painter of common objects, were uniquely influential. Here in Untitled (one), an array of upright objects (about 60) redolent of pipes are gathered into a formal, symmetrical arrangement that recalls the familiar trope of figures assembled for a group portrait to celebrate an event or occasion. Forming a gently sloping triangle both two- and three-dimensionally, the staggered throng, front to back, segues from petite to XL scale. Albeit forged of hard, rigid steel, Shirleyʼs forms are nevertheless tapered, softly curving, and swelling demonstrating his interest in sensualizing his medium while intimating a poised, silent gathering of spectral presences.
Text by Dennis Alan Nawrocki
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