Cindy Sherman - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Tuesday, October 11, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Skarstedt Gallery, New York

  • Literature

    Interview Magazine, 1983; P. Schjeldahl and I. M. Danoff, Cindy Sherman, New York:
    Pantheon Books, 1984; R. Krauss, Cindy Sherman 1975–1993, New York: Rizzoli, 1993, p. 114;
    Z. Felix and M. Schwander, eds., Cindy Sherman: Photographic Work 1975–1995, Munich: Schirmer
    Art Books, 1995, pl. 53; A. Cruz and E. A. T. Smith, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, London: Thames
    and Hudson, 2007, pl. 90

  • Catalogue Essay

    “In Fashion (1983–84), as with Centerfolds, Cindy Sherman revisits a classic genre (full-page or double-page fashion photographs in magazines), and gives it a new twist. She also succeeds in hijacking the basic purpose of fashion itself, namely beautification and the incitement to dream (perhaps these notions were increasingly passé in the fashion world, too: this period coincided with the rise of the ‘trash tendency). Sherman uses her own phantasmagoric wardrobe as a source of props, and systematically debases the item she has chosen. The items of clothing are always clearly presented, but they are worn by grotesque, caricature figures. As her notebooks of the period confirm, Sherman is seeking to express her loathing of the fashion industry and the clothes it produces: the outfits are too rigidly categorized, too ‘perfect to be of any use to the artist, or to enter into her imaginary world. In a brilliant reversal of her usual strategy, Sherman-faced with the difficulty of appropriating the garments themselves-uses the clothes ‘as they stand’ and transforms the figures that are supposed to show them off.”

    (Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Paris, Jeu de Paume, 2006, p. 253)

  • 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

25

Untitled #122

1983
Colour coupler print.
89.5 × 54.3 cm (35 1/4 × 21 3/8 in).
Signed, dated and numbered of 18 on the reverse. This work is an artist’s proof from an edition of 18 plus 4 artist’s proofs.

Estimate
£150,000 - 200,000 

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

12 October 2011
London