Metro Pictures, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner
New York, The Museum of Modern Art, The Complete Untitled Film Stills: Cindy Sherman, June 26 - September 2, 2007, p. 4 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
Vienna, Sammlung Verbund, The Feminist Avant-Garde of the 1970s: Works from Sammlung Verbund Collection, October 7, 2016 - January 15, 2017, p. 457 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
Worcester Art Museum, Photo Revolution: Andy Warhol to Cindy Sherman, November 16, 2019 - February 16, 2020, p. 101 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 32)
Gabriele Schor, Cindy Sherman: The Early Works 1975 - 1977, Ostfildern, 2012, no. 16, p. 122 (another example illustrated, p. 123)
Molly Nesbit, Midnight - The Tempest Essays, New York, 2017, p. 113 (another example illustrated)
Nina Schallenberg, ed., 40 Works: Marx Collection, Berlin, 2019, p. 152 (another example illustrated)
American • 1954
Seminal to the Pictures Generation as well as contemporary photography and performance art, Cindy Sherman is a powerhouse art practitioner. Wily and beguiling, Sherman's signature mode of art making involves transforming herself into a litany of characters, historical and fictional, that cross the lines of gender and culture. She startled contemporary art when, in 1977, she published a series of untitled film stills.
Through mise-en-scène and movie-like make-up and costume, Sherman treats each photograph as a portrait, though never one of herself. She embodies her characters even if only for the image itself. Presenting subversion through mimicry, against tableaus of mass media and image-based messages of pop culture, Sherman takes on both art history and the art world.
Though a shape-shifter, Sherman has become an art world celebrity in her own right. The subject of solo retrospectives across the world, including a blockbuster showing at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and a frequent exhibitor at the Venice Biennale among other biennials, Sherman holds an inextricable place in contemporary art history.
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