Untitled Film Still #56Art Blart _ art and cultural memory archive

Exhibition: ‘Cindy Sherman – Untitled Horrors’ at the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo

Exhibition dates: 4th May – 22nd September 2013

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #92
1981
Chromogenic colour print
61 x 121.9cm
The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo

Like a mouthful of cinders.

Marcus

Many thankx to the Astrup Fearnley Museet for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #167
1985
Chromogenic colour print
150 x 225cm
Astrup Fearnley Collection

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Film Still #32
1979
Gelatin silver print
69.5 x 87.2cm
Astrup Fearnley Collection

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #150
1985
Chromogenic colour print
121 x 163.8cm
Collection of Cynthia and Abe Steinberger

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Film Still #56
1980
Gelatin silver print
15.5 x 22.8cm
Moderna Museet
Donation from The American Friends of the Moderna Museet, Inc., 2010

Cindy Sherman (born 1954) is one of the leading and most influential artists of our time. She belongs to a generation of postmodern artists who redefined the photograph and its place in an ever more visually oriented culture. Taking female roles in photographic representations as her starting point, Sherman creates recognisable pictures that mirror the human condition in its many nuances. Sherman’s pictures became key works in a time of turbulence for the very concept of art, and continue to challenge concepts of representation, identity and portrait.

Cindy Sherman’s allegorical pictures reflect our own conception of the world and open up for new interpretations of familiar phenomena. She uses herself as a model and equally portrays film stars and pin-up girls, as well as abnormal monsters from fantasy worlds. Sherman’s assertive use of masks, wigs and prosthetics has a disturbing effect, which is further reinforced in pictures where the human presence is gradually reduced in favour of posed dolls or traces of waste and decay.

The exhibition Cindy Sherman – Untitled Horrors has been composed to emphasise the disturbing, grotesque and disquieting sides of Sherman’s pictures. These are aspects that are visible in her exploration of well-established photographic genres such as film stills, fashion photography or classic portraits, as well as in series with titles such as Fairy Tales, Disasters, Sex Pictures, Civil War and Horror & Surrealist. This exhibition seeks to highlight these key aspects in her artistry and to examine their relevance through a dedicated selection of works from the beginning of her career in the mid-1970s up to the present day.

In conjunction with the exhibition, a richly illustrated catalogue is being published in cooperation with art publishers Hatje Cantz Verlag. The idea behind the catalogue is to explore and examine the more disquieting sides of Sherman’s art by inviting contributions from authors who have touched on similar themes in their own works. Contributors are well-known artists, dramatists and authors including Lars Norén, Miranda July, Sibylle Berg, Sjón, Sara Stridsberg, Karl Ove Knausgård and Kathy Acker.

Press release from the Astrup Fearnley Museet website

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #402
2000
Chromogenic colour print
88 x 60cm
Astrup Fearnley Samlingen / Collection

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #132
1984
Chromogenic colour print
176.3 x 119.2cm
Kunsthaus Zürich

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #199-A
1989
Chromogenic colour print
63.3 x 45.7cm
Astrup Fearnley Collection

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #152
1985
Chromogenic colour print
184.2 x 125.4cm
Astrup Fearnley Samlingen/ Collection

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled #470
2008
Chromogenic colour print
216.5 x 147.5cm
Acquired with founding from The American Friends of the Moderna Museet Inc.,

Astrup Fearnley Museet
Strandpromenaden 2, 0252 Oslo
Phone: +47 22 93 60 60

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Friday 12-17
Thursday 12-19
Saturday, Sunday 11-17
Mondays closed

Astrup Fearnley Museet website

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Exhibition: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen: The Camera as a Mirror’ at the Moderna Museet, Malmö, Sweden

Exhibition dates: 18th February 2012 – 22nd April 2012

Curator: Magnus af Petersens

Many thankx to the Moderna Museet for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954)
Untitled Film Still #56
1980
© Cindy Sherman. Courtesy of the Artist and Metro Pictures

Tracey Moffatt (Australian, b. 1960)
Something More #1
1997
Cibachrome print
© Tracey Moffatt/BUS 2012

Samuel Fosso (Cameroon, b. 1962)
Sans titre. De la série Années 70
1970-1980
Gelatin silver print
© Samuel Fosso, Courtesy JM Patras/Paris

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Patti Smith
1979
Gelatin silver print
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

Robert Mapplethorpe (American, 1946-1989)
Self Portrait
1980
Gelatin silver print
© Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation

Malick Sidibé (Malian, 1936-2016)
Danser le Twist (Dance the Twist)
1965
Gelatin silver print

Seydou Keïta (Mali, 1921-2001)
Untitled #419
1950-1952
Gelatin silver print
© Seydou Keïta / SKPEAC

Seydou Keïta (Mali, 1921-2001)
Untitled #420
1950-1952
© Seydou Keïta / SKPEAC

This spring we will be showing more than forty photographs from the period 1950-90 taken by leading artists such as Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, Samuel Fosso, Tracey Moffatt, and Elina Brotherus. The exhibition focuses on the art of portrait photography and how the artist in his or her studio creates images that depict people not just as they actually are, but also as they would like to appear.

Moderna Museet’s collection of photography is among the foremost in Europe, it includes some of the most prominent figures in the history of photography. Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, and Robert Mapplethorpe are all big names in photography, artists whose work often revolves around concepts of identity, sexuality, and performativity. The photography studio is a place for masquerades and manipulations, a stage where various identities and roles can be tested. It therefore problematises the idea that a portrait is meant to convey some truth about the subject’s inner life. How do we distinguish a staged scene from reality? Is it even possible to make such a distinction? How free are we to form our own identity? If it’s a matter of choosing a role, what roles are available to us?

Andy Warhol’s Polaroid pictures, whose title, Ladies and Gentlemen, has also provided the name for the exhibition, are examples of his interest in – or rather his obsession with – celebrities. From industrial magnates to movie stars, from rock musicians to the “superstar” friends who hung out around the Factory, his fabled studio. In the world of pop art and popular culture, surface is everything. Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs are instead classically composed – stylised and aesthetically formed. In the controlled environment and lighting of the photo studio, he strives not for realism but for beauty. Here role-play becomes a part of the picture’s constructed character.

In Cindy Sherman’s suite of images called Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), she plays with film clichés. The scenes and characters in her photographs seem familiar, but in fact it’s always Sherman herself we see in the leading role. Using the camera as a mirror, she takes on and explores various roles. It’s a game of trying on identities that is familiar to teenagers in particular the world over, a game we play in an attempt to find ourselves, or rather to construct an individual identity. One of the many ways in which Sherman’s pictures have been interpreted is as a feminist critique of the limited number of roles available to women.

This exhibition also presents several works by Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, and Samuel Fosso, studio photographers who work primarily with portrait photography. Keïta’s studio was next-door to a movie theater in Bamako, the capitol city of Mali. Sidibé takes pictures not just in his studio but also at weddings and other parties. His photographs from Bamako in the 1960s reflect the great hope that came with liberation from French colonial power. Fosso opened his studio in Bangui, in the Central African Republic, when he was still a teenager. He is best known for a series of self-portraits in which he dons a variety of outfits to assume different roles.

Press release from the Moderna Museet website

Francesco Vezzoli (Italian, b. 1971)
Portrait of H.R.H The Princess of Hanover (Before & After Salvador Dalí)
2009
© Francesco Vezzoli/BUS 2012

Moderna Museet Malmö
Gasverksgatan 22 in Malmö

Moderna Museet Malmö is located in the city centre of Malmö. Ten minutes walk from the Central station, five minutes walk from Gustav Adolfs torg and Stortorget.

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11 – 17
Mondays closed

Moderna Museet Malmö website

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