#CindySherman

Early Cindy SHerman photograph from the Untitled Film Stills series.

Here is the copy from the National Portrait Gallery about this huge show:

“This major new retrospective explores the development of Sherman’s work from the mid-1970s to the present day, and features around 150 works from international public and private collections as well as new work never before displayed in a public gallery.

Focusing on the artist’s manipulation of her own appearance and her deployment of material derived from a range of cultural sources, including film, advertising and fashion, the show explores the tension between façade and identity.”

*
Yes to all of this. She is a master of technique and a genius. Sherman is constantly creating figures to take portraits of. They are always her in makeup, disguise, and costume — but each person we greet in this vast show is a real archetype; a subject that is both totally unique and completely representative of a larger trend or grotesque element in our western society.

She is a force. Go see this incredible exhibition. Also - if you catch the Sherman bug — do watch the BBC Arena documentary where they interview her ex boyfriend, the superstar artist Robert Longo. Longo talks about the pair hanging about SUNY Buffalo as undergrads and coming up with what becomes Sherman’s modus operandi - that of character creation - for the rest of her career.