Metro Pictures, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art; Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art; Prague, Galerie Rudolfinum; London, Barbican Art Gallery; Bordeaux, CAPC Musée d'Art Contemporain; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, 2 November 1997 - 2 January 2000, no. 127, pp. 166 and 199 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 166)
Oslo, Astrup Fearnley Museet; Stockholm, Moderna Museet; Kunsthaus Zurich, Cindy Sherman - Untitled Horrors, 4 May 2013 - 14 September 2014, pp. 150 and 226 (illustrated, p. 150)
Rosalind Krauss and Norman Bryson, Cindy Sherman 1975-1993, New York, 1993, pp. 204 and 232 (another example illustrated, p. 204)
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