What’s temporary becomes permanent. Nearly 21 months since closing its doors to prepare for a move to a new location, the Warehouse Art Museum announced on Monday that it will no longer reopen a physical space.
Instead, WAM says it will focus on collaborating with “other established institutions in Wisconsin and elsewhere,” according to the museum’s announcement. Its Serr & Shannon Collection will stay available for “institutional loans and academic research,” and the collection’s works and past exhibitions will remain viewable online on WAM’s website. The museum says the decision came after “thoughtful consideration over many months.”
The Warehouse Art Museum opened in 2018 by Jan Serr and John Shannon on the first floor of a Menomonee Valley building at 1635 W. St. Paul Ave. It housed the founders’ collection of over 7,300 modern and contemporary works on paper, paintings, photography and sculpture, highlighting a mix of international and Wisconsin artists. The free, private museum sprung out of a need to store Serr and Shannon’s massive art trove and a desire to share it with the public. In its five-year span, WAM staged 15 unique exhibitions, including a comprehensive look at South African artist William Kentridge and a retrospective of Milwaukee artist Ruth Grotenrath.
WAM’s final exhibition, “PAUSE/CONNECT,” spotlighted the photography in its collection. After that exhibition closed in November 2023, WAM closed its doors through 2024 on a temporary basis and announced it would move to a new location that would double its gallery space.
It’s unclear where WAM’s collection will be held or what its future looks like. The announcement says, “We see this not as a goodbye, but a see-you-later.”
