PHOTO:Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman is a contemporary master of socially critical photography. She is a key figure of the “Pictures Generation”. 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: Metro Pictures Gallery Archive

Cindy Sherman presents new photographs produced in 2016, her first new body of work since 2012 at Metro Pictures Gallery. As always to create her photographs, she assumes multiple roles of 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. The exhibition presents 16 life-size, full-color portraits, Cindy Sherman 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. In an interview she said about her new work “I’d been thinking about using makeup in a more extreme way, perhaps since the last two bodies of work (the Chanel series and the mural) didn’t involve any makeup at all, as I’d been tweaking the faces with Photoshop. As I was looking through a book about German Expressionist films and their stars, it all came together. Because of the extreme way actors made their faces up in those early day of film in order to pop out in the black-and-white. I just wanted to use makeup in the same way, partly perhaps because as women get older they’re told to wear less makeup. I loved the idea of doing the opposite”. The photos are shot before a green screen and then the backgrounds are digitally manipulated to allude to old film sets and backdrops. Taking further advantage of new technical options, each work is a dye sublimation printed directly onto metal, eliminating the need for glass protection and giving them an immediacy and sheen that has the paradoxical effect of bringing their subjects to life while simultaneously flattening them into a hyper-stylized netherworld.

Info: Metro Pictures Gallery, 519 West 24th Street, New York, Duration: 5/5-11/6/16, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.metropicturesgallery.com