PHOTO: Cindy Sherman, Anti-Fashion

The American artist Cindy Sherman is one of the most influential photographers of our time. Her approach to placing her own body at the center of elaborate productions without ever producing a self-portrait is often done with the help of the pointed use of fashion. The Deichtorhallen Hamburg is devoting an extraordinary and multifaceted show of her work to the photographer’s complex relationship to haute couture with the exhibition “Anti-Fashion”.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Deichtorhallen Hamburg Archive

The theme of fashion has been a common thread through the work of photographer Cindy Sherman for almost 50 years. From the very beginning, her engagement with the fashion world is characterized by a subversive force. The exhibition “Anti-Fashion” illuminates the photographic work of the artist born in 1954 for the first time from this previously little-noticed perspective. Sherman, who began looking for suitable clothing in second-hand shops for her first photographic works during her college years, illustrates the ambivalent interplay between fashion and art like no other artist with her work. Through the medium of photography, the world of fashion and the visual arts have always been in dialogue. Cindy Sherman uses this reciprocal relationship to caricature and question the aesthetics of fashion photography, which are based on clichés and social norms. Her photographs show people who are anything but desirable and contradict the conventions of beauty. Critical questions about gender assignments and how to deal with aging are also addressed. Sherman’s impressive changeability emphasizes the artificiality of identities, which appear more than ever selectable, (self-)constructed and fluid. In addition to her examination of the depths of the fashion world, what is particularly characteristic of Sherman’s work is that she exposes stereotypes right from the start of her career and has thereby shaped the current discourse for decades. Sherman’s photographs leave no one untouched; they inspire, shock and fascinate in equal measure. They help us see fashion today with different eyes. While film art was still considered the main source of inspiration for her internationally acclaimed series “Untitled Film Stills” (1977–1980), Sherman increasingly dealt with the aesthetics and appeal of fashion photography in the 1980s. In addition to her critical work, Sherman also frequently appears in front of and behind the camera for fashion companies such as Chanel and takes photographs that are used by designers such as Rei Kawakubo and Marc Jacobs as part of their companies’ marketing. Sherman also uses her commissions from fashion magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar to reflect on the fine line between clothing and disguise (“Clowns” series, 2003-2005) or, as in the “Balenciaga” series (2007/2008), the tragicomic one Efforts to express a society striving for eternal youth. The result is a multi-layered work that demonstrates fashion(s) by putting them on display and even taking them to the extreme. With her lifelong fascination for a fashion industry between visual promise and human self-deception, Sherman continues to influence the aesthetics of the fashion world today and in doing so provides essential impulses, including for an entire generation of photographers. In addition to Sherman’s works, publications and advertising materials are also on display in the context of which the photographs in question were first published. These magazines, postcards, posters and invitation cards come from the artist’s private archives and are on exclusive loan from Cindy Sherman.

Photo: Cindy Sherman, Untitled #462, 2007/2008, Privatsammlung Europa, © Cindy Sherman, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Info: Curator: Dr. Alessandra Nappo, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, The Falckenberg Collection, Wilstorfer Str. 71, Hamburg, Germany, Duration: 7/10/2023-3/3/2024, Days & Hours: Sat-Sun 12:00-17:00, www.deichtorhallen.de/