PHOTO:Cindy Sherman

Her long career in photography has established Cindy Sherman as one of the most influential figures in contemporary art. At first painting in a super-realist style in art school during the aftermath of American Feminism, Sherman turned to photography toward the end of the ‘70s in order to explore a wide range of common female social roles, or personas.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Sprüth Magers Gallery Archive

To create her photographs, Cindy Sherman assumes multiple roles: photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and props, Sherman has deftly altered her physique and surroundings to create a myriad of intriguing tableaus and characters, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite. She is perhaps best known for the early black-and-white photographic series “Untitled Film Stills” (1977-80). In this work, Sherman staged herself as an actress in fictitious film scenes that mined the aesthetics of mid-Century Hollywood film, film noir and B-movies. In other series such as “Centrefolds” (1981), “Fashion Photos” (1984-1984), “Sex Pictures” (1992) and “Clowns” (2004), Sherman transformed herself through make-up, wigs, costumes and prosthetics into roles that yo-yo between provocative, passive, pornographic, abject, and grotesque. By over-dramatizing stereotypical and clichéd imagery of women, she rendered it critically perceptible – commenting both on the construction of identity and the strategies of media representation. Cindy Sherman’s exhibition at Sprüth Magers Gallery in London present her most recent body of work, created in 2016, which debuted in Europe at the Sprüth Magers Gallery in Berlin year. Now, the exhibition has been brought to the UK and includes several new and previously unseen works. In the large-scale color portraits, the artist adopts the personae of famous independent women from the Golden Age of cinema, the women are no longer young but they characterized by exaggerated makeup, modern clothing and seductive poses, like the ‘20s Hollywood publicity photos. Differing from Sherman’s earlier series, these actresses are presented outside of the filmic narrative, posing instead for formal publicity shots, Sherman described a typical movie star from the photos as a woman “Who is now maybe in 1960, but she is still stuck in the ‘20s, so she’s still dressed or coifed that way”. The actresses pose against digitally manipulated backgrounds that are suggestive of the film sets and backdrops of yesteryear. Skyscrapers, a busy café scene, manicured gardens and a classical landscape all feature within the series. Each photograph has been created through dye sublimation, using heat to transfer dye directly onto metal. The technique removes the necessity for glass protection to the works, making the life-size figures seem more immediate, more vital, emerging from their outmoded stage sets to encroach on our own contemporary world.

Info: Sprüth Magers Gallery, 7A Grafton Street, London, Duration: 5/6-1/9/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.spruethmagers.com