Cindy Sherman - Photographs New York Tuesday, April 4, 2023 | Phillips
  • Ever the master of disguise, Cindy Sherman offers a persuasive and provocative exploration into the construction of identity, representation and the self in Untitled #132, 1984. The current image is emblematic of her work throughout the late 1980s, which pushed boundaries of comfort both for the artist and viewer through the use of bright, fluorescent lighting, and unsettling, contrasting colors.

     

    Cindy Sherman's art is definitively postmodern. Each image is constructed around a photographic depiction of a woman; a woman that Sherman herself embodies, simultaneously artist and model, transformed, chameleon-like, into a glossary of pose, gesture and facial expression.

    • Provenance

      Skarstedt Gallery, New York, 2010

    • Literature

      Hatje Cantz, Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors, p. 86
      Moorhouse, Cindy Sherman, p. 54, pl. 46
      Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, p. 125, pl. 92
      The Museum of Modern Art, Cindy Sherman, p. 125, pl. 82
      Whitney Museum of American Art, Cindy Sherman, pl. 91
      Zdenek, and Schwander, Cindy Sherman: Photographic Work, 1975-1995, pl. 66

    • 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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Photographs from an Important Collection

188

Untitled #132

1984
Chromogenic print.
66 1/2 x 44 1/2 in. (168.9 x 113 cm)
Overall 68 1/2 x 46 1/2 in. (174 x 118.1 cm)

Signed, dated, and numbered AP 1/1 in ink on a gallery label affixed to the reverse of the flush-mount. One from an edition of 5 plus one artist's proof.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$70,000 - 90,000 

Sold for $127,000

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department, Photographs
skrueger@phillips.com


Vanessa Hallett
Worldwide Head of Photographs and Chairwoman, Americas
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 4 April 2023