Cindy Sherman:
Working Girl
Cindy Sherman:
Working Girl
Contemporary Decade Series
Decade Series 2005 Cindy Sherman: Working Girl Published by Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis 3750 Washington Boulevard St. Louis, Missouri 63108 www.contemporarystl.org This publication was prepared on the occasion of the exhibition: Cindy Sherman: Working Girl September 16–December 31, 2005 Curated by Paul Ha, Director of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis. Allegiant Funds and National City Private Client Group are the Lead Sponsors of the exhibition and catalogue. Additional funding has been generously provided by Sara Lee Corporation, the Whitaker Foundation, Regional Arts Commission, Arts & Education Council, and Friends of the Contemporary, with in-kind support from the Chase Park Plaza Hotel.
Copyright Š 2005 Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, the artist, and the authors. All rights reserved. ISBN 0-9712195-8-3 Library of Congress Control Number: 2005929549 Copy edited by Kate Wagner Designed by Bruce Burton Printed by Stolze Printing Company, Inc. Printed and bound in St. Louis, Missouri Available through D.A.P. / Distributed Art Publishers 155 Sixth Avenue, 2nd Floor New York, NY 10013 Tel: (212) 627-1999 Fax: (212) 627-9484
Cover: Untitled (Secretary) (detail), 1978, sepia-toned black-and-white photograph, 14 x 11 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Cindy Sherman: Working Girl
September 16–December 31, 2005
Table of Contents 4
Foreword Paul Ha
7
The Education of Cindy Sherman Catherine Morris
36
Exhibition Checklist
38
Artist’s Biography
53
Contributor’s Biography
54
Acknowledgments Paul Ha
Foreword
Cindy Sherman: Working Girl launches the Contemporary’s Decade Series. In these exhibitions, artists who have made significant contributions to the dialogue of contemporary art are invited to work with us to develop shows that highlight a moment in each of their careers that has particular resonance. I am thrilled to inaugurate this series with an exhibition devoted to the work Cindy Sherman made between 1975 and 1978, the years spanning her transition from undergraduate student to emerging artist.
4 Foreword
This past spring, all over world, a fresh crop of artists crossed the first major hurdle of their artistic lives: graduating from art school. And while there is not a single institution of higher learning that can offer a guaranteed, step-by-step course in becoming a successful artist, the recent graduates still believe that they could be the next Cindy Sherman. In many ways the path of today’s young artist has not changed significantly since Cindy graduated from Buffalo State College in June 1976. The basic outline: finish school, move to a cosmopolitan city (pick one), be shocked at the difficulty of survival, find a means of survival (employment), and try to make your own work. In many cases artists’ first jobs give them the opportunity to handle, or at least be surrounded by, objects that will inspire their own artwork: working as museum guards, as gallery preparators, in frame shops, or for video production companies. As artists’ assistants many recent graduates glimpse the course they would like their own futures to take. Another route is to receive a tutorial on what to expect from a gallery, when and if the artist gets one, by working the front desk. With twenty-twenty hindsight it is tempting to say that, in reviewing the arc of Cindy’s career, she was clearly destined to become one of the most compelling artists of the last thirty years. But instead it should be noted that as a student at a small state college Cindy struggled and failed an introductory photography course she was required to take during her freshman year. So, who can predict where the next genius lies in wait? Is there a formula for being a successful artist? Who will, two years after graduation (or even before graduating), show with important galleries all over the world? Who will have sold-out shows? Who will be wined and dined and collected by major museums and important collectors? Who will receive a MacArthur—the genius grant? Who will be recognized by their peers, curators, critics, and dealers as one of the few artists who made a difference? We know that Cindy Sherman has achieved all of these things. Are there markers from her undergraduate years we can point to, suggestions that can act as a road map for the next group of entering freshmen who dream of becoming the twenty-first-century Cindy Sherman? In Buffalo, Cindy did in fact do a few not uncommon things to begin to establish herself. In fact,
many successful artists follow a similar path, either consciously or intuitively. The best strategy for survival is pack mentality: peer groups teach as much as classes, and peers encourage and spur one another into action. My advice: if there is not a scene, create one. In Cindy’s case, the artist-run, alternative space Hallwalls, which was founded by her friends Robert Longo, Charles Clough, Nancy Dwyer, and Michael Zwack, was the place where things were happening, and she not only positioned herself there, she moved into the building with Longo and in her own quiet way took ownership of it (she was the gallery’s bookkeeper). The pack at Hallwalls created their own opportunities. They found the space, curated their own shows, invited the artists they most admired to come and speak, and found the capital needed to keep the place running. In doing so, they generated attention and opportunities for themselves. To idle is to disappear. Other artists who have used this method are peppered throughout the relatively short history of contemporary art: George Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, and the neo-expressionist movement in Germany in the 1960s; Damian Hirst and the Young British Artists movement in London in the 1990s. Currently there are hopeful signs of self intervention in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, Brooklyn, proving that this is still a valid model: these artists have sought out others like themselves who want to be part of the zeitgeist of the art world and are willing to take action to further their careers.
This review of Cindy’s early work gives us a chance to test ourselves—to see if we can, after all these years, see what Janelle Reiring and Helene Winer saw when they first encountered these strange black-and-white photographs of a girl playing dress-up. Do we have what it takes to acknowledge talent before anyone else can see it? And when we do recognize talent, do we have the courage and the vision to show it and to support it? This catalogue is dedicated to all the art students who will graduate this year. Paul Ha Director
5 Foreword
When Cindy moved to New York City in 1977, she planted herself at another alternative gallery: Artists Space. Employed as a receptionist, she was exposed to the work that was being shown at that groundbreaking venue for new art. More importantly, it was an environment where people understood what she was doing and she had time to think about her own work. Artists Space’s director, Helene Winer, who was introduced to Cindy at Hallwalls, presented Cindy’s work in a group show curated by Janelle Reiring, Winer’s school chum who was then working at Leo Castelli Gallery. The show also included works by Charlie Clough, Nancy Dwyer, Louise Lawler, Robert Longo, and Michael Zwack, all recent Buffalo transplants. Reiring and Winer would go on to open Metro Pictures and become Cindy’s longtime gallerists. They were another key to Cindy’s success because they understood Cindy’s ambition. Ambition in this sense means a drive to make work that supercedes everything else. Successful artists think about making their own art all the time. They are obsessed with making their work better. They are their own best and worst critics.
6
Untitled (Secretary), 1978, sepia-toned black-and-white photograph, 14 x 11 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
The Education of Cindy Sherman Catherine Morris
C
indy Sherman entered Buffalo State College as a freshman painting major in the fall of 1972. By the time she moved to Manhattan in the summer of 1977—having stayed on in Buffalo for a year after graduating—Sherman had abandoned painting in favor of a conceptually-based photographic practice that incorporated lessons she learned from studying performance art, body art, and film theory of the late 1960s and 1970s. Though Sherman did not begin working on her milestone Untitled Film Stills series until the fall of 1977, the photographic experiments she pursued from 1975 to 1977 formed a significant foundation upon which her later critical reputation was built.1 Further examination of the narrative-driven, montage techniques Sherman explored in her early photographic and film work elucidates a course of formal and intellectual distillation that allowed for the breakthrough that became the Untitled Film Stills, while also revealing how the precedents of conceptual and alternative-media art forms of the 1960s and early 1970s played a vital role in that developmental process. 7 The Education of Cindy Sherman
Sherman established the tools of her photographic trade—makeup, costumes, and often banal yet telling props, combined with the artist’s elusive and ambiguous use of her own body as subject—early in life.2 Growing up in Huntington Beach, Long Island, Sherman was an avid player of dress-up, but, in her case, “It wasn’t about dressing up to look like Mom, or Doris Day, it was just fun to look different. It had nothing to do with dissatisfaction, or fantasizing about being another person; it was instinctive.”3 The adaptation of a rudimentary means of childhood expression and recreation into an intellectually coherent creative project began in 1975, when Sherman gave up painting and started taking photographs that documented the characters she had been dreaming up and dressing up as for years. The shift in medium and subject, along with her own burgeoning interest in conceptual art—learned in the classroom and also from her peers, including, most significantly, Robert Longo and Charles Clough—resulted in the first work Sherman felt was important or, as she described it, “doing something different.”4
8
Students and emerging artists of the mid-1970s were quick to understand the critical significance of the conceptual art movement, and in the art world backwater of Buffalo, the young artists of Sherman’s circle found a way to take charge of their own contemporary art educations. Longo (who was Sherman’s boyfriend at the time) and Clough founded Hallwalls, an artist-run, alternative gallery space in 1974. Initially carved out of a hallway in a former ice-packing warehouse that had been turned into an artists’ living and studio building, Hallwalls would become one of two driving forces (the Albright-Knox Art Gallery being the other) for the local art scene. Living and working in the Hallwalls building while staging exhibitions and inviting the artists they read about in Avalanche magazine and other periodicals of the period to come and speak or stage a performance, Sherman and her cohorts created a self-directed course of study that significantly altered their development as artists.
The Education of Cindy Sherman
Sherman has cited the conceptually based performance work of Vito Acconci, Chris Burden, and Bruce Nauman (among others) as important precedents in her own critical process.5 For Sherman, the pioneering body work Bruce Nauman, Studies for Holograms (a–e), 1970, a portfolio of five screenprints, 26 x 26 inches each, edition of 150. Published by Castelli Graphics, New York. these artists produced Courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York did not represent an art movement to emulate so much as it offered examples of radical activity-based and process-oriented work from which to develop her own approach to using her body as a subject. The change of Sherman’s reaction to Acconci’s slyly confrontational and often outrageously discomforting works—such as his infamous Seed Bed (1972), in
which he masturbates into a microphone while hidden under a false gallery floor—from “feminist indignation and repulsion” to the realization that “his art pushed limits and made you hate it without really knowing what it was”6 shows how her thinking moved from involuntary reaction to a more analytical criticality. The guerilla-like tactics Acconci employs to engage, enrage, or repulse his audience also contain an important element of ambiguity: after an initial reaction, such as Sherman’s, the viewer is left wondering how to respond. Visual ambiguity would become the backbone of Sherman’s own practice. Like Acconci, Chris Burden’s extreme acts of masochistic body art—having himself shot in the arm, crawling through fields of broken glass with his arms tied behind his back—operate in a shocking yet liberating manner. Bruce Nauman’s facial and bodily manipulations are a sly exchange of humor and intellectual challenge with his audience. Of his Studies for Holograms (1970) Nauman wrote, “if you perform a bunch of arbitrary operations, some people will make very strong connections with them, others won’t.”7 Sherman’s work has always reflected a similar sensibility: an inflected moment appears to hold some specific, graspable meaning, but in its very elusiveness, no final, satisfying connection can be made.
9 The Education of Cindy Sherman
Another vital piece of Sherman’s educational experience was the example of women artists who also used their bodies in experimental and radical productions. Lynda Benglis, Eleanor Antin, Adrian Piper, and Hannah Wilke played significant roles in solidifying Sherman’s thinking. On a pragmatic, art-world-role-model level, she has noted, “Just the fact that they had a presence made a difference.”8 On critical and formal levels, the differences they made were manifold. One was the liberation gained by seeing women make compelling work in the new mediums of body and performance art. As Lucy Lippard has pointed out, “The inexpensive, ephemeral, unintimidating character of the Conceptual mediums themselves (video, performance, photography, narrative text, actions) encouraged women to participate, to move through this crack in the art world’s walls.”9 Second, the highly politicized content that was a driving force in the conceptual art movement comes to bear most clearly in Sherman’s work in the form of feminism. Feminist voices supplanting the heretofore male-dominated dialogue about female representation and identity in the fine arts offered a form of validation for Sherman’s own burgeoning feminist interests. As Douglas Fogle has noted, “The use of the artist’s body in the photographic practice of the time was closely related to another use of self-portraiture in the service of interrogation of identity.”10 Consciously or not, making the choice to transform and manipulate her
own body as a subject has its roots in the feminist discourse of ideation established by these pioneering artists.
10 The Education of Cindy Sherman
Eleanor Antin, whose experiments in documenting her own personal transformation in film and photography began in the 1960s, can be seen as an influence in the spirit of the “personal is political” thinking of the day, but formal relationships to Sherman’s work also exist. Gail Stavitsky has pointed out the parallels between Sherman’s use of makeup and how Antin employs makeup in her Representational Painting (1971).11 In this thirty-eight-minute, black-and-white film Antin archly plots a political link from the oppressive and banal activity of a woman applying makeup as a form of social defense to the history of painting and traditional representations of women. Similarly, in Carving: A Traditional Sculpture (1972), which consists of 148 black-and-white photographs Antin took of herself from various angles over the course of a 36-day diet, the artist uses her own body to make a simple political point about the tyranny of the idealization of women’s bodies, while simultaneously engaging in the critical discourse of temporality and transformation inherent in body and process art. The sequential, quasi-narrative transformations undertaken by Sherman in two works made in 1975 mirror Carving: Eleanor Antin, Carving: A Traditional Sculpture (detail), 1972, installation view, 148 black-and-white photographs and text, 7 x 5 inches each. Courtesy Ronald Feldman A Traditional Fine Arts, New York. Collection of The Art Institute of Chicago Sculpture. Both untitled works document a process of transformation using straightforward headshots against plain backdrops. The first Untitled, composed of thirteen images presented horizontally, depicts the transitioning or maturing of a young girl with a lousy poker face into a reserved young woman. In the second Untitled work—which the artist has referred to as her “first serious work”12—Sherman morphs, over the course of twenty-three images displayed in a grid, from a rather sullen, unexceptional-looking male teenager into a full-blown, pre-punk vamp.
The work was shot in 35mm black-and-white film, and Sherman hand colored some of the images for heightened effect. Like Antin, Sherman employs filmmaking techniques, such as storyboard photographic narratives, to develop a series of narrative transformations that speak to issues of female identity and a form of psychological exegesis.
In the closing scene of the film—billed as the “cast in order of appearance”—Sherman montages the individual photographs she used in the film to produce an accordion-like string of images that echo all of the doll’s movements and postures in Doll Clothes. This method
11 The Education of Cindy Sherman
The strong interrelationship between Sherman’s photographic practice and her interest in film has been well documented.13 Early in her Buffalo years Sherman worked for the experimental filmmaker Paul Sharits, and she took introductory film courses. The three-minute silent animation Doll Clothes (1975) was made for one of her classes. Employing cut-out photographs of herself in arrested postures that as a group depict her character’s movements, Sherman becomes a paper doll come to life. The story line is simple: the doll flips through plastic sleeves holding her clothing options (school clothes, dresses, casual wear), selects a dress, and gets a moment to admire herself in a dresser top mirror before a human hand descends into the frame to grab, defrock, and replace her in the sleeve of the folder that houses both her and her clothes. In Doll Clothes Sherman has chosen a subject—a paper doll—that lends itself ideally to her photographic interests. Rather than make a film in which she actually appears, Sherman chooses Hannah Wilke, S.O.S. Starification Object Series, 1974-82, 10 black-and-white to make a film photographs, 15 gum sculptures, 41 3/16 x 58 3/8 inches (framed). Courtesy Ronald about photographic Feldman Fine Arts, New York representations of herself in arrested moments of movement. The removal of herself as subject while retaining her body as a backdrop for an imaginary construction that characterizes her mature work has begun.
of undulating motion appears again in two works she produced the following year. While Sherman has dismissed these two pieces, Untitled (Mini) and The Fairies, as “contrived and girlie,”14 the accordion-style presentation is an interesting experiment in using movement to convey stereotypical femininity.
12 The Education of Cindy Sherman
Lynda Benglis and Hannah Wilke were both interested in exploiting and manipulating brazen postures related to female sexuality to their own ends. Both artists were often perceived in the 1970s as operating outside the parameters of orthodox feminism. The overtly stereotypical modes of sexual seduction they favored in their work were interpreted as being detrimental to the cause of women’s liberation, though Benglis and Wilke believed in reclaiming their sexual identities through the very means used to exploit them. Sherman’s work can be seen as similarly, if more gently, adapting the methods of Wilke’s S.O.S. Starification Object Series (1974) and Benglis’s infamous depiction of herself as a dildo-wielding vamp in the pages of Artforum (1974) by the use of stereotypical attention-getting devices. In Sherman’s Untitled (Mini) the fluid movement and preening gestures of a young girl viewing her ensemble of minidress, platform shoes, and large, round glasses from all angles seem to happen in front of an unseen mirror. The viewer of the work becomes the mirror in which this decidedly unsexy young woman checks herself out, and the confident sexuality of Benglis and Wilke is humorously and painfully transformed into the reality of socially proscribed sexuality. The Fairies takes a similar tack, this time in the form of a young child dressed up in a fairy costume acting the part. By illustrating a simple performative moment, stretching out a series of actions that do not actually result in any definitive transformation, a painful mockery is exposed. A comment Yvonne Rainer made about her own work can be applied here: “irony is a way of revealing the pressure points in an unjust society—for instance, depicting the female self trapped between habitual modes of behavior and new knowledge of social structures. True irony is only a first step, a tearing of a hole in the fabric and peeking through.”15 While Sherman has said she was not aware of the term “male gaze” at this stage of her career,16 the fact remains that her figures operate from within the social confines young girls experience early in life. Judith Williamson, in a 1983 essay on the artist, remarks, “Sherman’s pictures force upon the viewer that elision of image and identity which women experience all the time: as if the sexy black dress made you be a femme fatale, whereas ‘femme fatale’ is, precisely, an image; it needs a viewer to function at all. . . . Within each image, far from deconstructing
the elision of image and identity, she very smartly leads the viewer to construct it; but by presenting a whole lexicon of feminine identities, all of them played by ‘her,’ she undermines your little constructions as fast as you can build them up.”17 The viewer, as mirror, is needed to complete this awkwardly painful construction.
The relationship to her earlier work remains, however, in Sherman’s interest in retaining the ambiguity between of her intention and the viewer’s response to the images. Adrian Piper, whose series Catalysis (1970) was intended as a direct confrontation of unsuspecting people in public places, including buses, said, “I’ve been doing pieces the significance and experience of which is defined as completely as possible by the viewer’s reaction and interpretation.”18 The relationship to the conceptual practices of performance and body are retained.
13 The Education of Cindy Sherman
The Bus Rider series, which Sherman produced in 1976, is markedly different from the earlier Untitled works. First, these photographs operate as discrete character studies rather than presenting the transformative moments of her earlier pieces. As such, the Bus Riders can be seen as transitional images, carrying the fluid narrative of the work that preceded them toward the more stop-action, snatchedmoment images she would turn to in the Untitled Film Stills and beyond. The fifteen characters the artist interprets were inspired by individuals she saw riding the bus, and they reflect a spectrum of society one would expect to find on any type of public transportation. Each of the photographs is highly staged, and the goal of identifying individual characteristics takes precedent over formal refinement. Sherman seems not to care that camera wires, tape markers, and discarded props from previous sittings intrude upon the Adrian Piper, Catalysis IV, 1970/71, black-and-white photographs, 16 x 16 inches. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York images.
Putting her Buffalo years behind her, Sherman moved to Manhattan with Longo in the summer of 1977 and began her working life as a full-fledged artist. While Sherman’s Untitled (Secretary) (1978) is not a part of the Untitled Film Stills series that she started in the fall of her arrival on the New York art scene, it is yet another link between her early work and the photographs that would become her first work as a mature artist. A dress-up snapshot of Sherman in the role of secretary, Untitled (Secretary) was taken on site at Sherman’s New York day job as a receptionist at Artists Space, the alternative gallery that would define the second chapter in her career. Untitled (Secretary) announces Sherman’s transition from student to working girl and closes the chapter on Cindy Sherman’s formal education.
14 The Education of Cindy Sherman
See Gail Stavitsky, The Unseen Cindy Sherman: Early Transformations, 1975–1976 (Montclair, NJ: Montclair Art Museum, 2004). Stavitsky’s essay concisely outlines Sherman’s biography and the course of her thinking during this period. See also Early Work of Cindy Sherman, (East Hampton, NY: Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 2000). 1
Cindy Sherman, “The Making of Untitled,” in Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003). See also Stavitsky, Unseen Cindy Sherman; Calvin Tomkins, “Her Secret Identities,” The New Yorker, May 15, 2000, 74–83; and my The Essential Cindy Sherman (New York: Harry N. Abrams Publishers, 1999). 2
3
Sherman, “The Making of Untitled,” 12.
Jeanne Siegel, Art Talk: The Early 80s (New York: Da Capo Press, 1988), 270. Also quoted in Stavitsky, Unseen Cindy Sherman, 9. 4
5
Stavitsky, Unseen Cindy Sherman, 11; Acconci and Burden visited Hallwalls.
6
Stavitsky, Unseen Cindy Sherman, 11.
“Talking with Bruce Nauman: An Interview by Christopher Cordes,” in Bruce Nauman Prints: 1970–89 (New York and Chicago: Castelli Graphics, Lorence Monk Gallery and Donald Young Gallery, 1989), 25. 7
8
Sherman, “The Making of Untitled,” 5.
Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), xi. 9
Douglas Fogle, The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography, 1960–1982 (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2003), 16. 10
Stavitsky, Unseen Cindy Sherman, 12.
12
Stavitsky, Unseen Cindy Sherman, 14.
Television and movies factor into Sherman’s development from her early childhood. In her mature career, from the Untitled Film Stills, to the Rear Screen Projections (1980–81), to Sherman’s own experiment in filmmaking with Office Killer (1997), her relationship to movies and moviemaking is clear. 13
14
Sherman, “The Making of Untitled,” 6.
Yvonne Rainer, in Laleen Jayamanne, Keeta Kapur, and Rainer, “Discussing Modernity, ‘Third World’ and The Man Who Envied Women,” Art and Text (Melbourne) 23, no. 4 (March–May 1987), 50. Reprinted in Ann Goldstein and Anne Rorimer, Reconsidering the Object of Art, 1965–1975 (Los Angeles and Cambridge MA: Museum of Contemporary Art and MIT Press, 1995), 201. 15
16
Sherman, “The Making of Untitled,” 9.
Judith Williamson, “Images of ‘Woman’: The Photography of Cindy Sherman,” reprinted in Hilary Robinson, Feminism-Art-Theory: An Anthology, 1968–2000 (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 453. 17
Adrian Piper, section of an ongoing essay, January 1971, from 26 Contemporary Women Artists (Ridgefield, CT: Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, April 1971). Reprinted in Lucy Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 234–35. 18
15 The Education of Cindy Sherman
11
16 Untitled, 1975, 13 black-and-white photographs, 9 3/4 x 45 inches. Collection of Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Prescott, Arizona
17
18
Untitled, 1975, 23 hand-colored black-and-white photographs, 20 1/2 x 33 1/2 inches. Collection of Dorothy and Peter Waldt, Glen Ridge, New Jersey
19
20
The Fairies, 1976, black-and-white cut-out photographs mounted on paper, 10 x 23 inches. Collection of Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Prescott, Arizona
21
22
Untitled (Mini), 1976, black-and-white cut-out photographs mounted on paper, 16 1/4 x 39 1/4 inches. Collection of Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Prescott, Arizona
23
24 Bus Rider series Untitled, 1976/2000, edition 17/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Bus Rider series
25
Untitled, 1976/2000, edition 17/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
26 Bus Rider series Untitled, 1976/2000, edition 17/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Bus Rider series
27
Untitled, 1976/2000, edition 17/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
28 Bus Rider series Untitled, 1976/2000, edition 17/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Bus Rider series
29
Untitled, 1976/2000, edition 17/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
30 Bus Rider series Untitled, 1976/2005, edition 1/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Bus Rider series
31
Untitled, 1976/2005, edition 1/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
32 Bus Rider series Untitled, 1976/2005, edition 1/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Bus Rider series
33
Untitled, 1976/2005, edition 1/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
34 Bus Rider series Untitled, 1976/2005, edition 1/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Bus Rider series
35
Untitled, 1976/2005, edition 1/20, black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Exhibition Checklist
Bus Rider series
Other Works
All works black-and-white photograph, image: 7 3/16 x 5 inches, paper: 10 x 8 inches. All images courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures Gallery, New York
Untitled (Secretary), 1978 (page 6) sepia-toned black-and-white photograph 14 x 11 inches Courtesy of the artist and MetroPictures Gallery, New York
In order of appearance in catalog (pages 24-35): Untitled, 1976/2000 Edition 17/20 Untitled, 1976/2000 Edition 17/20 Untitled, 1976/2000 Edition 17/20
36
Untitled, 1976/2000 Edition 17/20
Exhibition Checklist
Untitled, 1976/2000 Edition 17/20 Untitled, 1976/2000 Edition 17/20 Untitled, 1976/2005 Edition 1/20 Untitled, 1976/2005 Edition 1/20 Untitled, 1976/2005 Edition 1/20 Untitled, 1976/2005 Edition 1/20 Untitled, 1976/2005 Edition 1/20 Untitled, 1976/2005 Edition 1/20
Untitled, 1975 (pages 16-17) 13 black-and-white photographs 9 3/4 x 45 inches Collection of Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Prescott, Arizona Untitled, 1975 (pages 18-19) 23 hand-colored black-and-white photographs 20 1/2 x 33 1/2 inches Collection of Dorothy and Peter Waldt, Glen Ridge, New Jersey The Fairies, 1976 (pages 20-21) black-and-white cut-out photographs mounted on paper 10 x 23 inches Collection of Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Prescott, Arizona Untitled (Mini), 1976 (pages 22-23) black-and-white cut-out photographs mounted on paper 16 1/4 x 39 1/4 inches Collection of Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Prescott, Arizona Doll Clothes, 1975 (page 37) ďŹ lm stills, 16mm ďŹ lm transferred to DVD, 3 minutes in length. Courtesy of the artist
37
Doll Clothes, 1975, 16mm ďŹ lm transferred to DVD, 3 minutes in length. Courtesy of the artist
Artist’s Biography
CINDY SHERMAN Born 1954, Glen Ridge, New Jersey Lives and works in New York City EDUCATION 1976
BA, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2005
Cindy Sherman: Working Girl, Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri Cindy Sherman, Guild Hall, East Hampton, New York Clowns, Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, Munich, Germany
2004
Metro Pictures, New York, New York (and 2000, 1999, 1998, 1996, 1995, 1992, 1990, 1989, 1987, 1985, 1983, 1982, 1981) The Unseen Cindy Sherman: Early Transformations 1975/1976, Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey
38 Artist’s Biography
Clowns, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany 2003
Cindy Sherman, Centerfolds, 1981, Skarstedt Fine Art, New York, New York Cindy Sherman, Serpentine Gallery, London, England; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland
2001
Cindy Sherman: Early Works, Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy Cindy Sherman, Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen, Denmark
2000
Hasselblad Center, Göteborg, Sweden Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles, California Galería Juana de Aizpuru, Madrid, Spain greengrassi, London, United Kingdom
1999
Monika Sprüth Galerie, Cologne, Germany (and 1995, 1992, 1990, 1988)
1998
Allegories, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington
1997
Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York Cindy Sherman: A Selection from the Eli Broad Family Foundation’s Collection, Museo de Bellas Artes, Caracas, Venezuela Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic; CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain, Bordeaux, France; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, Australia; Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada Cindy Sherman, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
1996
Cindy Sherman, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain; Sala de Exposicions REKALDE, Bilbao, Spain; Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden, Germany Cindy Sherman, Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan; Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame, Japan; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo, Japan Metamorphosis: Cindy Sherman Photographs, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio Directions: Cindy Sherman—Film Stills, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Cindy Sherman Photographien 1975–1995, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany; Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, Sweden; Kunstmuseum Luzern, Lucerne, Switzerland Cindy Sherman, Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil
1994
Cindy Sherman, ACC Galerie Weimar, Weimar, Germany Cindy Sherman, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester, United Kingdom Cindy Sherman, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland
1993
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Israel
1992
Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico
1991
Cindy Sherman, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland; Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst, Munich, Germany; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, United Kingdom
39 Artist’s Biography
1995
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Center for the Fine Arts, Miami, Florida; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota 1990
Padiglione per l’Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy Cindy Sherman/MATRIX 138, University of California, Berkeley Art Museum, Berkeley, California
1989
National Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand; Waikato Museum of Art and History, Hamilton, New Zealand
1987
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
1985
Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany
1984
Cindy Sherman, Akron Art Museum, Akron, Ohio; Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa; The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland
1983
Musee d’Art et d’Industrie, Saint-Étienne, France Currents 20: Cindy Sherman, Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
40
1982
Artist’s Biography
Cindy Sherman, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Gewad, Ghent, Belgium; Watershed Media Center, Bristol, United Kingdom; John Hansard Gallery, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom; Palais Stutterheim, Erlangen, Germany; Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Germany; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland; Sonja Henie-Niels Onstad Foundation, Copenhagen, Denmark; Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Humlebaek, Denmark Cindy Sherman, Deja Vu, Dijon, France
1980
Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas
1979
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, New York
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2005
Contemporanea, Fundación Juan March, Madrid, Spain
2004
Fashioning Fiction in Photographing since 1990, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York La Grande Parade—Portrait de L’artiste en Clown, Galeries Nationals du Grand Palais, Paris, France; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Canada
Disparities & Deformations—Our Grotesque, 5th International Site Santa Fe Biennial, Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico Shanghai Biennale—Techniques of the Visible, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China 2003
Pletskud, Arken Museum for Moderne Kunst, Ishøj, Denmark The Last Picture Show: Artists Using Photography 1960–1982, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, California; Miami Art Central, Miami, Florida
2002
Tableaux Vivants, Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria Hautnah—The Goetz Collection, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany Moving Pictures, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York Visions from America: Photographs from the Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Life, Death, Love, Hate, Pleasure, Pain, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois Double Life, Generali Foundation, Vienna, Austria Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collections, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts ABBILD: Recent Portraiture and Depiction, Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria
2000
Let’s Entertain, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France; Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Internacional Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico; Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany; Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida Open Ends, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York Hyper Mental, Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
1999
Gesammelte Werke 1: Zeitgenössische Kunst seit 1968, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany Notorious, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, United Kingdom The American Century, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Inverted Odysseys, Grey Art Gallery, New York, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Florida
41 Artist’s Biography
2001
The Century of the Body: Photoworks 1900–2000, Culturgest, Lisbon, Portugal; Musée de l’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland Triennale Exhibition: Sentiment of the Year 2000, Triennale di Milano, Milan, Spain Regarding Beauty, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. 1998
Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism, and Self-Representation, MIT List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Miami Art Museum, Miami, Florida; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California
1997
Gender Performance in Photography, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York On the Edge: Contemporary Art from the Werner and Elaine Dannheisser Collection, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York Von Beuys bis Cindy Sherman Sammlung Lothar Schirmer, Kunsthalle Bremen, Bremen, Germany
1996
L’Informe: le Modernisme a Rebours, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Hall of Mirrors: Art and Film Since 1945, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois; Biennale di Firenze, Florence, Italy
42 Artist’s Biography
1995
Projections, Ydessa Hendeles Art Foundation, Toronto, Canada 1995 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Zeichen & Wunder, Kunsthaus Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland XLVI Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte 1995, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy Feminimasculin: Le Sexe de l’Art, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France 1995 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
1994
World Morality, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland Body and Soul, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland Jurgen Klauke—Cindy Sherman, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany
1993
Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Kunsternes Hus, Oslo, Norway; Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland 1993 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York American Art of This Century, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany; Royal Academy of Arts, London, United Kingdom
1992
Post Human, Musée d’Art Contemporain, Pully, Switzerland; Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy; Deste Foundation, Athens, Greece; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany; Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel
1991
1991 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York Metropolis, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany
1990
Culture and Commentary, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Energies, The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands The Readymade Boomerang, Eighth Biennial of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
1989
A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California Bilderstreit, Mense Rhineside Halls, Cologne, Germany
1987
Avant-Garde in the Eighties, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California Implosion: A Postmodern Perspective, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
1986
Art and Its Double: A New York Perspective, Fundació la Caixa de Pensions, Barcelona, Spain; Fundació la Caja de Pensions, Madrid, Spain Individuals: A Selected History of Contemporary Art, 1945–1986, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, California The American Exhibition, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois
1985
1985 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1985 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
43 Artist’s Biography
Image World: Art and Media Culture, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
1984
Alibis, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France Content: A Contemporary Focus, 1974–84, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. The Fifth Biennale of Sydney, Private Symbol: Social Metaphor, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
1983
Directions 1983, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. 1983 Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York The New Art, Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom
1982
Documenta 7, Kassel, Germany Eight Artists: The Anxious Edge, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 2004
The Unseen Cindy Sherman: Early Transforamtions 1975/1976. Montclair, New Jersey: Montclair Art Museum; Santa Monica, California: Smart Art Press. Jan Avgikos. “Reviews—Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures.” Artforum, September, 265.
44 Artist’s Biography
Roberta Smith. “The Ever-Shifting Selves of Cindy Sherman, Girlish Vamp to Clown.” The New York Times, May 28, E33. Richard B. Woodward. “Fun to Look Different.” ARTnews, May, 108. 2003
Cindy Sherman. London, United Kingdom: Serpentine Gallery. Cindy Sherman, Centerfolds 1981. New York, New York: Skarstedt Fine Art. Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art. Betsy Berne. “Studio Visit: Cindy Sherman.” TATE Arts and Culture (London, United Kingdom), May/June, 36–42. Simon Ford. “Head to Head: Cindy Sherman and Barbara Kruger in London.” Art Monthly, July–August, no. 268, 35–37. David Frankel. “Cindy Sherman Talks to David Frankel.” Artforum, March, 54–55, 259–60. Michael Kimmelman. “Unambiguously Cindy.” New York Times Magazine, October 5, 32.
Tom Lubbock. “The Make-up Girl.” The Independent Review (London, United Kingdom), June 3, 14–15. Charlotte Mullins. “Living Doll.” Financial Times (London, United Kingdom), June 7. Molly Nesbit. “Bright Light, Big City: The ’80s Without Walls.” Artforum, April, 184–89, 245–48. John Slyce. “Beyond Recognition: The Unidentifiable Cindy Sherman.” Portfolio (London, United Kingdom), December, no. 38, 42–49. Gabby Wood. “I’m every woman . . . .” The Observer (London, United Kingdom), May 18, 4. 2002
Hautnah—The Goetz Collection. Munich, Germany: Museum Villa Stuck, 82–85. Visions from America: Photographs from the Whitney Museum of American Art. New York, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 130, 140, 221. Uta Grosenick and Burkhard Riemschneider, eds. Art Now. Cologne, Germany: Taschen, 452–55. Michael Kelly. “Danto and Krauss on Cindy Sherman.” In Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies, edited by Michael Ann Holly and Keith Moxey. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 122–46. ABBILD: Recent Portraiture and Depiction. Graz, Austria: Landesmuseum Joanneum. American Visionaries. New York, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 278. Collaborations with Parkett: 1984 to Now. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art. Jasper Johns to Jeff Koons: Four Decades of Art from the Broad Collections. Los Angeles, California: Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Sabine Breitwieser, ed. Double Life. Vienna, Austria: Generali Foundation.
January
David Gleeson. “Reviews—Cindy Sherman.” Time Out London, 3–10, 52. Cheryl Kaplan. “Cindy Sherman.” Tema Celeste, January–February, 91. Edward Leffingwell. “Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.” Art in America, June, 126.
2000
Early Work of Cindy Sherman, foreword by Edsel Williams. New York, New York: Glenn Horowitz Bookseller. Hypermental. Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 101.
45 Artist’s Biography
2001
Vince Aletti. “The Lady Vanishes.” The Village Voice, November 21, 85. Éva Forgács. “Cindy Sherman.” Art Issues, September/October, 46. Charles Gandee. “Women on the Verge.” Talk, May, 46. Michael Kimmelman. “Cindy Sherman.” The New York Times, November 24, E36. Gunilla Knape, ed. Cindy Sherman. Göteborg, Sweden: Hasselblad Center. Wayne Koestenbaum. “Fall Gals.” Artforum, September, 148–51. David Pagel. “Sherman is the Very Picture of How Others Fall Short.” Los Angeles Times, April 14, F22. Calvin Tompkins. “Her Secret Identities.” The New Yorker, May, 74–83. Kirk Varnedoe, Paola Antonelli, and Joshua Siegel, eds. Modern Contemporary: Art at MoMA Since 1980. New York, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 41, 230, 347. Andrew Wilson. “Cindy Sherman.” Art Monthly, December–January, 33–34. Linda Yablonsky. “Vanity Fare.” Time Out New York, November 30–December 7, 91. 1999
Dave Hickey. “Best of the ’90s.” Artforum, December, 112–13. Jutta Koether. “Old Witnesses.” Camera Austria, no. 67, 18–29. Janet Kraynak. “Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.” Documents, Fall, 54–58.
46 Artist’s Biography
Brook S. Mason. “Sherman’s March.” ARTnews, September, 72. Catherine Morris. The Essential Cindy Sherman. New York, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Barbara Pollack. “The 10 Best Living Artists: Self-Denial.” ARTnews, December, 146. Shelley Rice, ed. Inverted Odysseys: Claude Calhoun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press; New York, New York: Grey Art Gallery, New York University. Peter Schjeldahl. “Valley of the Dolls.” The New Yorker, June 7, 94–95. Mark Van Proyen. “Cindy Sherman.” New Art Observer, October, 46. Lilly Wei. “Cindy Sherman: Metro Pictures.” ARTnews, September, 147. 1998
“200 Women Legends, Leaders and Trailblazers.” Vanity Fair, November, 250. Claire Carolin. “Cindy Sherman: History Portraits.” Contemporary Visual Arts, no. 17, 75.
R. Forgáes. “Cindy Sherman.” Art Issues, January/February, 48. Miranda Sawyer. “The Invisible Woman.” The Observer (London, United Kingdom), Life weekend segment, 14–19. 1997
Cindy Sherman: A Selection From the Eli Broad Family Foundation’s Collection, essays by Frederica Palomero and Joanne Heyler. Caracas, Venezuela: Museo de Bellas Artes. Cindy Sherman: Retrospective, essays by Amanda Cruz, Amelia Jones, Elizabeth A.T. Smith. London, United Kingdom: Thames & Hudson; Chicago, Illinois: Museum of Contemporary Art; Los Angeles, California: Museum of Contemporary Art. John Anderson. “Office Killer Takes Aim at Horror Genre.” The Los Angeles Times, December 5, 4. Noriko Fuku. “A Woman of Parts.” Art in America, June, 74–81, 125. Phoebe Hoban. “Sherman’s March.” Vogue, February, 240–43, 278. Andrew Johnston. “Office Killer.” Time Out, December 4–11, 83. Christopher Knight. “Camera Ready.” Los Angeles Times, November 2, 5, 92. Helen Molesworth. “The Comfort of Objects: Helen Molesworth on Cindy Sherman’s ‘Untitled Film Stills’ 20 Years on,” Frieze, September/ October, 45–7. Herbert Muschamp, “Knowing Looks,” Artforum, Summer, 106–11.
Katharina Schmidt and Marc Scheps. Cindy Sherman. Cologne, Germany: Museum Ludwig. Roberta Smith. “Film Starlet Clichés, Genuine and Artificial at the Same Time.” The New York Times, June 27, C23. Roberta Smith. “A Horror Movie, Complete with Zombies.” The New York Times, November 30, 41. Mark Stevens. “Performance Anxiety.” New York, July 7, 58–59. 1996
Cindy Sherman, essays by Amelia Arenas, Chika Mori, Akio Obigane, Sachiko Osaki, interview with Noriko Fuku. Shiga, Japan: Museum of Modern Art; Marugame, Japan: Marugame Genichiro-Inokuma Museum of Contemporary Art; Tokyo, Japan: Museum of Contemporary Art. Cindy Sherman, essays by Betty van Garrel, Verena Lueken, Hal Foster, Margrit Brehm, Peter Schjeldahl. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. Hilton Als. “She Came From SoHo.” The New Yorker, April 22, 38–39. Dike Blair. “A Chat With Cindy Sherman.” Flash Art, March/April, 82.
47 Artist’s Biography
Peter Plagens. “The Odd Allure of Movies Never Made.” Newsweek, June 30, 74–75.
1995
Cindy Sherman: Photoarbeiten 1975–1995, introduction by Zdenek Felix and Martin Schwander, text by Elisabeth Bronfen and Ulf Erdmann Ziegler. Hamburg, Germany: Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Malmö, Sweden: Malmö Konsthall; Lucerne, Switzerland: Kunstmuseum Luzern. Cindy Sherman: The Self Which Is Not One, essay by Carlos Basualdo. São Paulo, Brazil: Museu de Arte Moderna de São Paulo. Dike Blair. “Cindy Sherman—Metro Pictures.” Flash Art, March–April, 103. Ken Johnson. “Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.” Art in America, May, 112–13. Michael Kimmelman. “Portraitist in the Halls of Her Artistic Ancestors.” The New York Times, May 19, C-1, C-7. Kim Paice. “Cindy Sherman.” Frieze, May, 60. Peter Schjeldahl. “Master Class.” The Village Voice, February 7, 77. Christa Schneider. Cindy Sherman: History Portraits. Munich, Germany: Schirmer/Mosel. Neville Wakefield. “Cindy Sherman.” Artforum, April, 89.
1994
Cindy Sherman and Juliao Sarmento. Dublin, Ireland: Irish Museum of Modern Art. From Beyond the Pale—Cindy Sherman Photographs 1977–1993. Dublin, Ireland: The Irish Museum of Modern Art.
48 Artist’s Biography
Jurgen Klauke—Cindy Sherman. Munich, Germany: Sammlung Goetz. Emily B. Greenberg. “Cindy Sherman and the Female Grotesque.” Art Criticism (9), no. 2, 49–55. Andrew Menard. “Cindy Sherman: The Cyborg Disrobes.” Art Criticism (9), no. 2, 38–48. 1993
Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons. Oslo, Norway: Kunsternes Hus; Helsinki, Finland: Museum of Contemporary Art. Jan Avgikos. “Cindy Sherman: Burning Down the House.” Artforum, January, 74–79. Rosalind E. Krauss. Cindy Sherman: 1975–1993. New York, New York: Rizzoli. Rosalind E. Krauss. “Cindy Sherman’s Gravity: A Critical Fable.” Artforum, September, 163–64, 206.
1992
Fitcher’s Bird, photography by Cindy Sherman. New York, New York: Rizzoli. Elizabeth Bronfen. Over Her Dead Body. Manchester, United Kingdom: Manchester University Press.
Brian D’Amato. “Cindy Sherman: Limbless Hermaphrodites and Dismembered Devil Dolls.” Flash Art, Summer, 107. Amei Wallach. “Tough Images to Face.” Los Angeles Times, June 7, 77. Judith Williamson. “Images of ‘Woman’: The Photography of Cindy Sherman” (reprint from Screen, 1983). In Knowing Women: Feminism and Knowledge. Milton Keynes: United Kingdom: The Open University, 222–25. 1991
Cindy Sherman, essay by Thomas Kellein. Basel, Switzerland: Kunsthalle Basel; London, United Kingdom: Whitechapel Art Gallery; Munich, Germany: Staatsgalerie Moderner Kunst. Cindy Sherman: Specimens. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto Shoin International. Currents 18: Cindy Sherman, essay by Dean Sobel. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Milwaukee Art Museum. History Portraits, essay by Arthur C. Danto. New York, New York: Rizzoli; Munich, Germany: Schirmer/Mosel. Norman Bryson. “The Ideal and the Abject: Cindy Sherman’s Historical Portraits.” Parkett, no. 29, 91–102. Wilfried Dickhoff. “Untitled #179.” Parkett, no. 29, 103–11. Ursula Pia Jauch. “I am Always the Other.” Parkett, no. 29, 74–81. Elfriede Jelinek. “Sidelines.” Parkett, no. 29, 82–90.
Abigail Solomon-Godeau. “Suitable for Framing: The Critical Recasting of Cindy Sherman.” Parkett, no. 29, 112–21. Hugo Williams. “Her Dazzling Career, Cindy Sherman at the Saatchi Collection.” Times Literary Supplement (London, United Kingdom), January 11, 10. 1990
“Insert: Cindy Sherman.” Parkett, no. 24, 119–33. Untitled Film Stills: Cindy Sherman, essay by Arthur C. Danto. Munich, Germany: Schirmer/Mosel; New York, New York: Rizzoli. Brooks Adams. “Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.” Art in America, June, 172–73. Glenn Collins. “A Portraitist’s Romp through Art History.” The New York Times, February 2, C17, C20. Peter Schjeldahl. “Portrait: She is a Camera.” 7 Days, March 28, 17–19. Roberta Smith. “A Course in Portraiture by an Individualist with a Camera.” The New York Times, January 5, C19.
49 Artist’s Biography
Laura Mulvey. “A Phantasmagoria of the Female Body: The Work of Cindy Sherman.” New Left Review, July/August, no. 188, 136–51.
1989
Cindy Sherman, essays by Robert Leonard and Priscilla Pitts. Wellington, New Zealand: The National Art Gallery. Peter Plagens. “Into the Fun House.” Newsweek, August 21, 52–57. David Rimanelli. “New York: Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures,” Artforum, Summer, 165. Rick Woodward. “Film Stills.” Film Comment, April, 51–54.
1987
Cindy Sherman, essays by Peter Schjeldahl and Lisa Phillips. New York, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art; Boston, Massachusetts: The Institute of Contemporary Art; Dallas, Texas: Dallas Museum of Art. Cindy Sherman, Tokyo, Japan: Parco Co., Ltd. Michael Brenson. “Art: Whitney Shows Cindy Sherman Photos.” The New York Times, July 24, C31. Arthur C. Danto. “Art: Cindy Sherman.” The Nation, August 15–22, 134–37. Ken Johnson. “Cindy Sherman and the Anti-Self: An Interpretation of Her Imagery.” Arts Magazine, November, 47–53. Gerald Marzorati. “Sherman’s March.” Vanity Fair, August, 135. Roberta Smith. “Art: Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.” The New York Times, May 8, C27.
50
1986
Artist’s Biography
H. H. Arnason. A History of Modern Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Photography. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.; New York, New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Deborah Drier. “Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures.” Art in America, January, 136–38. Stephen W. Melville. “The Time of Exposure: Allegorical SelfPortraiture in Cindy Sherman.” Arts Magazine, January, 17–21.
1985
Cindy Sherman, essay by Marianne Stockebrand. Münster, Germany: Westfälischer Kunstverein. Andy Grundberg. “Cindy Sherman’s Dark Fantasies Evoke a Primitive Past.” The New York Times, October 20, sec. 2, 31. Gerald Mazeroti. “Self-Possessed.” Vanity Fair, October, 135.
1984
Cindy Sherman. Tokyo, Japan: Laforet Museum. Cindy Sherman. essays by Peter Schjeldahl and I. Michael Danoff. New York, New York: Pantheon Books. Jamey Gambrell. “Marginal Acts.” Art in America, March, 114–19. Lisa Liebman. “Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures.” Artforum, March, 95.
Rosemary Robotham. “One-Woman Show: Cindy Sherman Puts Her Best Face Forward.” Life Magazine, June, 14–22. 1983
Cindy Sherman, essay by Christian Caujolle. Saint-Étienne, France: Musee d’Art d’Industrie. Jack Cowart. Currents 20: Cindy Sherman. St. Louis, Missouri: Saint Louis Art Museum. Vicki Goldberg. “Portrait of a Photographer as a Young Artist.” The New York Times, October 23, sec. 2, 29. Lee Lescaze. “Making Faces: A Photographer Dresses Up for Success.” The Wall Street Journal, November 15, 32. Kate Linker. “Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures.” Artforum, January, 79. Gerald Marzorati. “Imitation of Life.” ARTnews, September, 78–87. Roberta Smith. “Art.” The Village Voice, November 29, 119. Judith Williamson. “Images of ‘Woman’: The Photographs of Cindy Sherman.” Screen, November/December, 102–16.
1982
Cindy Sherman. Dijon, France: Deja Vu. Cindy Sherman, essay by Els Barents. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: The Stedelijk Museum; Munich, Germany: Schirmer/Mosel. Jamey Gambrell. “Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures.” Artforum, February, 85–86.
Peter Schjeldahl. “Shermanettes.” Art in America, March, 110–11. 1981
Douglas Crimp. “The Photographic Activity of Postmodernism.” October, Winter, No.15, 99–101. Richard Flood. “Cindy Sherman, Metro Pictures.” Artforum, March, 80. Andy Grundberg. “Cindy Sherman: A Playful and Political Post Modernist.” The New York Times, November 22, sec. 2, 35.
1980
Cindy Sherman: Photographs, essay by Linda Cathcart. Houston, Texas: Contemporary Arts Museum. Craig Owens. “The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism, Part 2.” October, Summer, no.13, 59–80.
1979
Douglas Crimp. “Pictures.” October, Spring, no.8, 75–88.
51 Artist’s Biography
Richard Rhodes. “Cindy Sherman’s ‘Film Stills.’” Parachute, September/October, 4–7.
FILM AND VIDEO DIRECTION 1997
Office Killer, feature film starring Molly Ringwald, Carol Kane, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Barbara Sukowa, Good Machine and Kardana/Swinsky Films
DOCUMENTARIES 1994
Nobody’s Here But Me, a 55-minute Cinecontact production for the BBC and the Arts Council of England, directed by Mark Stokes, produced by Robert Mcnab
AWARDS AND GRANTS
52 Artist’s Biography
2003
American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award
2002
National Arts Award
2001
New York State Governor’s Arts Award
2000
The Hasselblad Foundation
1999
Goslar Kaierring Prize
1997
Wolfgang-Hahn-Preis (Gesellschaft fur Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig)
1995
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
1993
Larry Aldrich Foundation Award, Connecticut
1989
Skowhegan Medal for Photography, Maine
1983
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
1977
National Endowment for the Arts
Contributor’s Biography
53 Contributor’s Biography
Catherine Morris is a New York–based independent curator and writer. Exhibitions she has curated or co-curated include: Confrontations: The Guerrilla Art Action Group, 1969–1976, Printed Matter, New York; Food, White Columns, New York; Annie Coggan: Love Seats for Virginia Woolf, A:D/B Project Space, Brooklyn, New York; Fort Greene, Brooklyn: A Social and Architectural History of a Neighborhood, A:D/B Project Space, Brooklyn, New York; Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art in the 1970s, White Columns, New York, winner of the International Association of Art Critics Award for Best Show in an Alternative or Public Space, 2002–2003; and Regarding Gloria, White Columns, New York. Morris co-edited An Eye on the Modern Century: The Letters of Henry McBride (Yale University Press, 2000), which was nominated for the Robert Motherwell Book Award. Morris writes reviews for Time Out New York and was recently named Adjunct Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, Oklahoma, where she recently curated a show of the work of Josiah McElheny. Morris was a 2004 recipient of a Penny McCall Foundation Grant for Independent Curating and Writing.
Acknowledgments
As one of the many people who have admired and been inspired by Cindy Sherman’s work, it is a privilege to collaborate with her on this, the first exhibition in our new Decade Series. Producing the exhibition Cindy Sherman: Working Girl and the catalogue that accompanies it fulfills my long-standing, personal goal of working with Cindy, an artist who has played and continues to play a critically important role in the development of contemporary art and art-making practices.
54 Acknowledgments
Many people have made this publication and exhibition possible. I am most grateful for the support of the Contemporary’s staff, whose daily efforts to advance this institution do not go unnoticed. Andrea Green, Curatorial Assistant, deserves special recognition. Her indispensable assistance and painstaking attention to detail have ensured this project’s success. I would like to acknowledge and thank Shannon Fitzgerald, Chief Curator, and Lisa Grove, Deputy Director. They are the heart and soul of this institution, and their continued dedication and extraordinary professionalism are an inspiration. I am invariably in awe of Brandon Anschultz, Jason Miller, and Mike Schuh, our imaginative and proficient production crew, for the ways they coordinate complicated loans and consistently and ingeniously make our exhibitions stunning. Bruce Burton maintains the high quality of our printed and online materials; I am grateful for his eye and ideas. For their creative and far-reaching work in education and community outreach, I am indebted to Becky Frantonius, Boo McLoughlin, and Kelly Scheffer. In addition, many other people throughout the institution strive to make the Contemporary a destination point by welcoming our ever-growing audience. I thank Jenn Daly, Jennifer Gaby, Mark Macleod, Cole Root, Kiersten Torrez, Sarah Ursini, and Mary Walters for their constantly innovative approaches to improving our visitors’ experiences. My deep gratitude also goes out to our docents for continuing to be our best ambassadors. Our interns Katie Foster, Deborah Friend, Ellen Fuson, Nancy Gebhart, Stephanie Laskowski, Nick Morgan, Allyson Ross, Lauren Sindelar, Alex Stein, Schuyler Whitely, and Francesca Wilmot have provided unique contributions that enhance the Contemporary. We gratefully acknowledge the lenders to this exhibition for their willingness to part with their invaluable works of art, many of which were personal gifts from the artist. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to Elizabeth and Frank Leite, Dorothy and Peter Waldt, and Cindy Sherman. I would also like thank Janelle Reiring and Helene Winer, Cindy’s longtime gallerists, along with Tom Heman and Peter Schuette of Metro Pictures, for their assistance with the exhibition and the generosity of their time. Margaret Lee of Cindy Sherman’s studio helped us locate what were sometimes thought to be lost materials.
Margaret’s resourcefulness and perseverance have enabled us to present one of Cindy’s early films for the first time. Thanks to Artists Rights Society, Sperone Westwater, Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, and Paula Cooper Gallery for suppling important reference images to include in the catalogue. I thank Kate Wagner for her attentive and detailed editing of this publication.
The Contemporary is grateful for the generous sponsorship of Alliegent Funds, National City Private Client Group, and the Sara Lee Corporation. I appreciate Christy Gray and the Whitaker Foundation, Jill McGuire and the Regional Arts Commission, Jim Weidman and the Arts & Education Council, and Baer Foundation for their ongoing support of the Contemporary and for providing funds for this exhibition. I am also thankful for the generosity of the Friends of the Contemporary, the Contemporary Collectors Group, and all our members. I am deeply indebted to the Board of Directors of the Contemporary for their continued support of our unique institution. It is only by their stewardship and exceptional efforts that we are able to open our doors to the public. I would also like to publicly recognize and thank our visitors. The participation and support of our public motivates all of us who are committed to this institution to stretch farther, dig deeper, and dedicate ourselves more fully to the Contemporary and its mission. Lastly, I thank Cindy Sherman, who through creativity and courage has inspired, touched, and influenced innumerable people. I am grateful for her work, and I am proud to be able to bring her work to our public. Paul Ha Director
55 Acknowledgments
I have benefited from and am thankful for long professional relationships with many colleagues, and I consider Catherine Morris my longest and best partner. I am once again indebted to her for her contribution of an engaging essay for this catalogue. I look back fondly on the exhibitions Food and Gloria: Another Look at Feminist Art in the 1970s where we acted as each other’s catalysts to produce shows that, like this one, included previously unknown or undervalued forms of ephemera and documentation. I am especially proud that we are able to continue our collaboration with this particular project. I also want to recognize Patterson Sims, Director of Montclair Art Museum, whose exhibition The Unseen Cindy Sherman: Early Transformations 1975/ 1976 provided my first encounter with Cindy’s early works. Gail Stavitsky deserves mention for her well-researched and thoughtful essay in Montclair’s catalogueue which has added greatly to the scholarship on Cindy Sherman’s early work. In the thrill of discovering something new, I was inspired by the Montclair show to pursue materials still unseen by the general public.
56
Snapshot of Cindy Sherman (left) and friend Janet Zink dressed up as old ladies, c.1966
Board of Directors
Staff
Susan Sherman, Chair John Fumagalli, Vice Chair, Development Carlin Scanlan, Vice Chair, Strategic Planning Ann Sheehan Lipton, Secretary Charles Cook, Treasurer Clarence C. Barksdale Mark R. Botterman Donald L. Bryant Jr. Bunny Burson John Capps Barbara Cook David M. Diener Arnold Donald Barbara Eagleton Alison Ferring John Ferring Shaun Hayes Becky Hubert James C. Jamieson III Nancy Kranzberg Kimberly MacLean Marylen Mann Joan Markow Linda M. Martinez Donna Moog Neva Moskowitz Ruthe Ponturo Emily Rauh Pulitzer Ann Ruwitch Pat Schuchard Michael Staenberg Donald M. Suggs
Brandon Anschultz Exhibitions Manager Bruce Burton Graphic Designer Jennifer Daly Executive Assistant Shannon Fitzgerald Chief Curator Becky Frantonius Saigh Education Coordinator Jennifer Gaby Special Events and Promotions Manager Andrea Green Curatorial Assistant Lisa Grove Deputy Director Paul Ha Director Mark Macleod Curatorial Graduate Intern Boo McLoughlin, Director of Education and Community Relations Jason Miller Facilities Manager/Assistant Preparator Cole Root Event Coordinator and Gallery Assistant Mike Schuh Registrar Kiersten Torrez Gift Shop Manager Sarah Ursini Visitor Services Coordinator Mary Walters Finance and Office Manager
Emeritus Eleanor W. Dewald Terrance Good Joan Goodson Ex-officio Meredith Holbrook, Friends’ Chair Vincent C. Schoemehl Jr.
Colophon This book was designed by Bruce Burton on a MacIntosh G5 in Adobe Indesign. The typeface is Excelsior, designed by Chauncey H. Griffith in 1931. Before designing this font, C.H. Griffith consulted the results of a survey of optometrists regarding optimal legibility. Excelsior font was then presented by Mergenthaler Linotype in 1931 and remains one of the most legible and popular fonts worldwide.
Cindy Sherman: Working Girl