Metro Pictures, New York
Private Collection, Cologne
Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
Christie’s, New York, November 8, 2011, lot 86
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Washington, D.C., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Cindy Sherman: Film Stills, March 15-June 25, 1995 (another example exhibited)
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Fact/Fiction: Contemporary Art that Walks the Line, February 12–April 16, 2000 (another example exhibited)
Aspen Art Museum, Circa 1979, 2004
Rosalind Krauss, Cindy Sherman 1975-1993, New York, 1993, p. 226
Elizabeth Janus and Marion Lambert, Veronica’s Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives on Photography, Berlin, 1998, p. 69 (another example illustrated)
David Frankel, Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, New York, 2003, pp.44-45 (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.
View More Works