Cindy Sherman - Photographs New York Thursday, October 7, 2021 | Phillips

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  • In 1993 Cindy Sherman was invited by Harper’s Bazaar to showcase the Spring designs. The present lot was the lead image in the editorial. Sherman, here in Dior, creates the character of a court jester, gleefully posing for the camera in high fashion and in a scene of her own making. In the accompanying article, Jim Lewis writes, ‘So in a way they’re fun-house mirrors: Every viewer will bring to them his or her own beliefs about femininity and see them reflected back distorted and transformed, to the point that any approach to beauty seems possible. If the artist is after something more specific, she isn't saying. The purpose of the pictures, after all, is to allow people to think for themselves: The context is fashion, and the medium is photography, but the goal is a freedom more basic and real than either.” 

     

    Harper’s Bazaar, ‘The New Cindy Sherman Collection,’ May 1993

    The power of fashion, and the characters Sherman embodies in the clothes she chooses, continues to be a predominant component of Sherman’s work, including a 2012 series in which she exclusively wore Haute Couture. In March 2016, Sherman’s work once again graced the pages of Harper’s Bazaar to showcase the Spring designs with a project titled Cindy Sherman Street Style Star.

    • Provenance

      Metro Pictures, New York
      Collection of Monique Knowlton, New York
      Simon Lee, London

    • Exhibited

      Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman, Grey Art Gallery, New York University, November 1999–January 2000

    • Literature

      "The New Cindy Sherman Collection," Harper's Bazaar, May 1993, p. 145
      Respini, Cindy Sherman, pl. 33

    • 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

Property from a Private Collection, New York

202

Untitled #277

1993
Chromogenic print, mounted.
73 x 49 in. (185.4 x 124.5 cm)
Signed, dated and numbered 5/6 in ink on the backing board.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$45,000 - 65,000 

Sold for $50,400

Contact Specialist

Sarah Krueger
Head of Department
+1 212 940 1225
skrueger@phillips.com

 

Vanessa Hallett
Deputy Chairwoman, Americas and Worldwide Head of Photographs
+1 212 940 1243
vhallett@phillips.com

Photographs

New York Auction 7 October 2021