Beschreibung:

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #9 1978 Gelatin silver print. 30 x 40 in. (76.2 x 101.6 cm.) Signed, titled and dated “Cindy Sherman 1978 MP #9” and numbered of three on the reverse. Edition one of three.
Provenance Linda Cathcart Gallery, Santa Monica Exhibited New York, Museum of Modern Art, Cindy Sherman The Complete Untitled Film Stills, June 26 – September 2, 1997, p. 51 (another example exhibited); Hamburg, Deichtorhallen; Konsthall Malmö and Kunstmuseum Lucerne, Cindy Sherman Photographic Work, 1975-1995, May 25, 1995 – February 11, 1996 (another example exhibited); Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art; Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art; Prague, Galerie Rudolfinum; London, Barbican Art Gallery; Bordeaux, Musée d’art Contemporain; Syndey, Museum of Contemporary Art and Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, November 2, 1997 – January 2, 2000 (another example exhibited) Literature P. Galassi, Cindy Sherman the Complete Untitled Film Stills, New York, 2003, p. 51 (another example illustrated); P. Schjeldahl and I. M. Danoff, Cindy Sherman New York, 1984, p. 8 (another example illustrated); P. Schjeldahl and E. Barent, Cindy Sherman 3. erweiterte Auflage, Munich, 1987, p. 8 (another example illustrated); R. Krauss, Cindy Sherman 1975-1993, New York, 1993, pp. 50-51 (another example illustrated); Z. Felix and M. Schwander, Cindy Sherman Photographic Work 1975-1995, Munich, 1995, no. 20 (another example illustrated); A. Cruz, E. Smith and A. Jones, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, New York and London, 1997, p. 59, no. 9 (another example illustrated) Catalogue Essay I was vulnerable by being this other character. We’re all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don’t spend any time, or think they don’t, on preparing themselves for the world out there — I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world. CINDY SHERMAN (Cindy Sherman on the Untitled Film Stills) Cindy Sherman’s Film Stills series, made between 1977 and 1980, comprised the most formative and groundbreaking work of her early career. Much of the series aims to portray one fictional actress, who Sherman herself embodies, at varying stages of a lengthy career. The current lot, Untitled Film Still #9, is a gelatin silver print from 1978, one in which Sherman intentionally used developing techniques to slightly alter the film, lending the images an antiqued quality of ready made nostalgia. The series, and the present lot in particular, vividly illustrate a side of Sherman’s relationship to feminism: as the viewer invents a narrative for the subject of the photograph, so does society invent and attempt to prescribe the roles of its women. In one manner, Sherman’s art is curative; with her careful establishment of her many artistic incarnations, it seems as though “being someone is no longer a permanent arrangement” (W. Januszczak, “Cindy Sherman: I’m Every Woman”, London Times, April 12, 2009). In Sherman’s black and white piece, we see her actress subject just right of center, lounging contraposto in a beach in a frilled vintage bathing suit. The Long Island deck, incidentally at Robert Longo’s parents’ beach house, reflects the day’s warm sunlight, as, we presume, the beach’s waves break against the sands in the distance. We find Sherman’s actress in a middle place in her career, perhaps stagnating slightly. Her face reveals a subtle anxiety in the midst of such a serene environment; is the tension due to the character she inhabits or her professional misgivings? Either way, Sherman forgoes giving us a narrative, instead allowing us to create our own vision of the woman in front of the camera. Read More Artist Bio Cindy Sherman American • 1954 Seminal to the Pictures Generation as well as contemporary photography and performance art, Cindy Sherman is a powerhouse art practitioner. Wily and beguiling, Sherman's signature mode of art making involves transforming herself into a litany of characters, historical and fictional, that cross the lines of gender and culture. She startled contemporary art when, in 1977, she published a series of