Cindy Sherman - Contemporary Art Evening Sale New York Thursday, November 13, 2014 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Private Collection, Europe

  • Exhibited

    New York, The Museum of Modern Art, The Complete Untitled Film Stills, Cindy Sherman, June 26 - September 2, 1997 (another example exhibited)
    Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, November 2, 1997 - February 1, 1998, then traveled to Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art (February 21 - May 31, 1998), Prague, Galerie Rudolfinum (June 25 - August 23, 1998), London, Barbican Art Gallery (September 10 - December 13, 1998), Bordeaux, CAPC, Musée d'art Contemporain de Bordeaux (February 6 - April 25, 1999). Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art (June 4 - August 29, 1999), Toronto, Art Gallery Toronto (October 1, 1999 - January 2, 2000) (another example exhibited)
    New York, The Museum of Modern Art, Cindy Sherman, February 26 - June 11, 2012) then traveled to San Francisco, The Museum of Modern Art (July 14 - October 7, 2012), Minneapolis, The Walker Art Center (November 10, 2012 - February 17, 2013), Dallas, Dallas Museum of Art (March 17 - June 9, 2013) (another example exhibited)

  • Literature

    R. Krauss, Cindy Sherman, 1975 - 1993, New York: Rizzoli, 1993, p. 72 (illustrated)
    A. Cruz, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, London: Thames & Hudson, 1997, p. 92, pl. 62 (illustrated)
    The Complete Untitled Film Stills, Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1997, p. 120 (illustrated)
    J. Burton, Cindy Sherman, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p. 119, pl. 75 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    "I'm good at using my face as a canvas... I'll see a photograph of a character and try to copy them on to my face."Cindy Sherman, 2011

    Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills from 1977-1980 stand at the intersection of Pop Culture and Feminism: presenting a series of images that are not to be interpreted as actual women but as mass-marketed stereotypes of women, all of whom are impersonated by Sherman herself. Indeed, the sole subject of her photographs is she herself, yet they are not self-portraits. Through variations in costume, makeup, setting, facial expression, and pose Sherman invents a different character for every image. Each woman has a different appearance and personality. Effectually, Sherman operates a one woman production studio encompassing the myriad roles of director, actress, costumer, lighting specialist and cinematographer.

    Untitled Film Still #60 is a superb example of Sherman’s ability to inhabit, recreate, and reframe the archetypal woman of her choosing. The woman in the image is not a self-portrait, but rather, is a portrait of a very specific cultural expectation of woman. As stereotypes, the women in Sherman’s images are the most diluted and commonly-accessible Western manifestations of female archetypes— a hero, a vixen, a femme fatale, a jilted lover, an ingénue. The strength of archetypes lies in their being naturally accepted as universal truths, their origin forever mythical and thus immune from being disproven.

    Like Warhol’s repetitive silkscreened cataloguing of soup types, Sherman presents the inventory of female stereotypes perpetuated in B-movies, film noir, and horror movies. By doing so, Sherman’s Film Stills transform viewers’ initial understanding of the images as plausible takes from a vaguely recognizable movie into a source of self-consciousness upon realizing the underlying social critique. Untitled Film Still #60 deftly exhibits this dichotomy and Sherman’s incomparable ability to render the real as fictitious and the fabricated as truth.

  • Artist Biography

    Cindy Sherman

    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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39

Untitled Film Still #60

1980
gelatin silver print
sheet 37 x 30 in. (94 x 76.2 cm)
image 35 x 28 in. (88.9 x 71.1 cm)

Signed, numbered and dated "Cindy Sherman 3/3 1980" on a gallery label affixed to reverse of the frame. This work is number 3 from an edition of 3.

Estimate
$300,000 - 400,000 

Sold for $305,000

Contact Specialist
Amanda Stoffel
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+ 1 212 940 1261

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 13 November 2014 7pm