American artist photographer and film director Cindy Sherman (1954, –) is currently being celebrated at home. Let me clarify this : celebrated in the lead museum of New York, the MOMA. Till mid-June.
Sherman, Contemporary Master of Socially Critical Photography
Cindy Sherman is recognized as one of the most important and influential contemporary artist of our times. Her photographs commands prices in same ballpark as male peers. In fact, her photographs are one of the highest paid ever. Recently, the Economist named her one of the top 10 most expensive female post-war artists.
Cindy Sherman “Untitled #96” (1981) brought in $3,890,500 at Christie’s New York.
Credit: Christie’s Images Ltd. 2012
Cindy’s work celebrates the feminine, but not in a sweety, timid, floral manner, but in an empowering feminine manner. The strong woman who builds upon classic female strengths such as the ability of multi tasking. For example, to create her photographs, she assumes the multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress, simultaneously.
Most importantly, Sherman is the strong woman artist who raises her voice. What typifies Sherman’s work is her consistent, or should I say, persistent challenge in asking most important questions about both the role and the representation of women in society, the media and even the creation of art.
MOMA brought together over 170 of Sherman’s photographs to trace the artist’s career from the mid 1970s to the present. Sherman works serial, and this exhibit shows spotlight to her key issues presented serially, such as
- "Untitled Film Stills" (1977–80), B/W pictures that feature the artist in stereotypical female roles inspired by 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, film noir, and European art-house films;
- Ornate history portraits (1989–90), in which the artist poses as aristocrats, clergymen, and milkmaids in the manner of old master paintings;
- Larger-than-life society portraits (2008) that address the experience and representation of aging in the context of contemporary obsessions with youth and status.
- recent photographic murals (2010).
Sherman is a uniquely self-styled artist, who can not and will not be slotted into any specific art style, genre or movement. At the most we could call her contemporary work ‘conceptual art’.
Through its exhibition, MOMA helps you to explore the dominant themes of Sherman’s career:
- artifice and fiction;
- cinema and performance;
- horror and the grotesque;
- myth, carnival, and fairy tale; and
- gender and class identity.
View history in the making and get to MOMA before the 12th of this month.
Cindy Sherman’s Historic Portrait #222
Historic References
Cindy Sherman
Published in 2012 to accompany the first major survey of Cindy Sherman’s work in the United States in nearly 15 years, this publication presents a stunning range of work from the groundbreaking artist’s 35-year career.
Speak Your Mind