Feb 07, 2024 
Untitled #632, 2010/2023
Cindy Sherman is an acclaimed American artist notorious for her conceptual self-portraits. Born in New Jersey in 1954, her work was quickly embraced in the New York art scene during the 1980s. During this vibrant decade, the city experienced a cultural renaissance that resulted in the birth of numerous iconic artists whose works criticized the overconsumption of mass media.
Sherman became famous for her series of portraits “Untitled Film Stills" (1977-1980). In her artwork, she plays multiple roles both in front of and behind the camera; she is the director, the stylist, the model, and the artist. The nostalgic series invokes memories of publicity stills from popular B movies, as well as American film noir of the 1950s and 1960s. Shot in black and white photography, Sherman posed in a range of garments under different scenarios. Furthermore, she morphed herself into imaginary main characters and reenacted conventional cinematic roles from a nonexistent film, thus fusing her craft with performance art. These impersonations were a reflection of how movies, television, and advertising portrayed women as oversexualized figures.
Her subsequent works, such as “Centerfolds” (1981), “Fairy Tales” (1985), "History Portraits" (1989-90), "Sex Pictures" (1992), and “Clowns” (2003-2004), continued to explore the stereotypes of women in society. Her photography progressed into color film and large-scale prints, and her imagery became increasingly daring and controversial. Her use of exaggerated wigs and unflattering make-up, as well as donning prosthetics and lying as a corpse, renders her work amusing, grotesque, and disturbing.
Sherman kept examining the distorted ideas of beauty, identity, and aging throughout her career. In 2017, her Instagram account became open to the public and immediately became an extension of her artwork. As such, her account features her trademark self-portraits into selfies that have been filtered and altered excessively as a critique of today’s beauty standards.
Sherman’s provocative artwork returned to the city where she initiated her groundbreaking career. Approximately thirty self-portraits are showcased in her latest exhibition at Hauser & Wirth gallery in NYC. Contrary to her previous series, the backsplash on the portraits was removed entirely, shifting the focus on the contorted facial expressions of the subject. Sherman playfully cut and pasted different parts of her face into a collage, in which her features were deconstructed and constructed again in distorted ways.
The outcome is both funny and unsettling. The cringy characters are a byproduct of make-up failures, overdone fillers, and cosmetic procedures gone wrong. Her recent portraits exemplify society's apprehension towards aging, as well as the extreme measures people will take to conceal imperfections and look younger. The exhibition will be on view until March 16, 2024.
For more information, visit https://www.hauserwirth.com/hauser-wirth-exhibitions/cindy-sherman/
Untitled #646, 2023
Untitled #657, 2023
Untitled #661, 2023
Cover photo: Untitled #648, 2023
Photo credit: © Cindy Sherman. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth, New York