Cindy Sherman - 20th C. & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York Wednesday, November 13, 2019 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Sprüth Magers, Berlin
    Acquired from the above by the present owner in the 1980s

  • Exhibited

    Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Cindy Sherman, December 1982, no. 26, p. 69 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
    New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Cindy Sherman, July 9 - October 4, 1987, no. 26, p. 17 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 73)
    Los Angeles, Museum of Contemporary Art; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Prague, Galerie Rudolfinum; London, Barbican Art Gallery; CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux; Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, November 2, 1997 - January 2, 2000, pl. 48, pp. 2, 197 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 83)
    Paris, Jeu de Paume; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Humlebæk, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art; Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Cindy Sherman, May 16, 2006 - September 10, 2007, p. 316 (another example exhibited and illustrated, pp. 50, 243)
    New York, The Museum of Modern Art; Seattle Art Museum, Into the Sunset: Photography’s Image of the American West, March 29, 2009 - May 23, 2010, p. 137 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
    New York, The Museum of Modern Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center; Dallas Museum of Art, Cindy Sherman, February 26, 2012 - June 9, 2013, pl. 42, pp. 21, 242 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 106)
    Kyoto, The National Museum of Modern Art; Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art, Reading Cinema, Finding Worlds: Art After Marcel Broodthaers, September 7, 2013 - June 1, 2014, p. 54 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
    Basel, Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Von Bildern, August 29, 2015 - January 24, 2016, no. 19, p. 60 (another example exhibited and illustrated)
    Los Angeles, The Broad; Columbus, Wexner Art Center, Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life, June 11, 2016 - December 31, 2017, no. 27, p. 153 (another example exhibited and illustrated, pp. 46-47)
    Washington, National Gallery of Art; Atlanta, High Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Outliers and American Vanguard Art, January 28, 2018 - March 18, 2019, pp. 22, 109, 363, 384 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 290)
    Shanghai, Fosun Foundation, Cindy Sherman, November 7, 2018 - January 13, 2019 (another example exhibited)
    London, National Portrait Gallery; Vancouver Art Gallery; Paris, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Cindy Sherman, June 27, 2019 - March 8, 2020 (another example exhibited)

  • Literature

    Peter Schjeldahl and I. Michael Danoff, Cindy Sherman, New York, 1984, no. 26, p. 65 (another example illustrated)
    Arthur C. Danto, Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills, New York, 1990, no. 29, n.p. (another example illustrated)
    Rosalind Krauss, Cindy Sherman 1975-1993, New York, 1993, p. 226 (another example illustrated, pp. 22-23)
    Cindy Sherman: Photographic Works 1975-1995, exh. cat., Deichtorhallen Hamburg, London, 1995, no. 14, p. 43 (another example illustrated)
    Gunilla Knape, Cindy Sherman, Göteborg, 2000, p. 47 (another example illustrated, p. 40)
    David Frankel, ed., Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, New York, 2003, pp. 15, 130 (another example illustrated, p. 131)
    Johanna Burton, Cindy Sherman, Cambridge, 2006, pp. 161, 163 (another example illustrated, p. 164)
    Joanne Heyler, ed., The Broad Collection, Los Angeles, 2015, p. 19 (another example illustrated)
    Kristin Lené Hole and Dijana Jelaca, Film Feminisms: A Global Introduction, New York, 2019, pp. 59-60 (another example illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #43, 1979, belongs to the landmark series of Untitled Film Stills created between 1977 and 1980 that established the artist’s early reputation and made her a mainstay in the canon of post‐modernist art theory and practice. Set in Monument Valley, near the border of Arizona and Utah, the iconic scene of Untitled Film Still #43 recalls the John Ford Hollywood Westerns of the 1930s, ‘40s, and ‘50s. The artist—assuming the role of director, set designer, make‐up artist, costume designer, and actress—poses in the guise of a generic female film character, passively sitting on a tree branch at the center of the composition, styled and displayed according to the fantasy of the male gaze. The format of the tableau, as a film still, and the pose of the subject, peering off into the distance, suggest the presence of a story, yet, the isolation of this moment within Sherman’s one-woman-show denies the spectator the action of a John Wayne Western. Without the satisfaction of a narrative arc, the viewer is left to contemplate the nature of their gaze and the construction of the object they behold.

  • 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.

    View More Works

430

Untitled Film Still #43

signed, numbered and dated "Cindy Sherman 2/10 1979" on the reverse
gelatin silver print
8 x 10 in. (20.3 x 25.4 cm.)
Executed in 1979, this work is number 2 from an edition of 10.

Another example from the edition is housed in the permanent collection of The Broad, Los Angeles.

Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000 

Sold for $275,000

Contact Specialist
Rebekah Bowling
Head of Day Sale, Afternoon Session
New York
+ 1 212 940 1250

20th C. & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session

New York Auction 13 November 2019