Cindy Sherman

New experiments in digital self-portraiture from the endlessly inventive Pictures Generation pioneer

This publication presents a new body of work by Cindy Sherman that continues her explorations of the genre of portraiture going back to her early work of the 1970s. Across 36 photographs, the artist collages parts of her own face to construct the identities of various sitters, using digital manipulation to accent the layered aspects and plasticity of the self. The book also includes a text by Sherman chronicling her process in the studio, offering an intimate glimpse into her thinking about the work.

Cindy Sherman (born 1954) came to prominence in the late 1970s with the Pictures Generation group alongside artists such as Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and Louise Lawler. Sherman studied art at Buffalo State College in 1972 where she soon turned her attention to photography. In 1977, shortly after moving to New York, Sherman began her critically acclaimed Untitled Film Stills. By the mid to late 1980s her visual language began to explore the more grotesque aspects of humanity through the lens of horror and the abject, as seen in works such as Fairy Tales (1985) and Disasters (1986-89). Since the early 2000s, Sherman has used digital technology to further manipulate her roster of characters. In 2017, she began using Instagram to upload portraits that utilize a number of face-tuning apps, morphing the artist into a plethora of protagonists in kaleidoscopic settings. Sherman lives and works in New York, and is represented by Hauser & Wirth.