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Lot Essay
Commissioned by Artforum in 1981, the Centerfolds were to be used as a portfolio within the magazine. Today, the twelve resulting images are among the most highly acclaimed portraits in Sherman's oeuvre. Exhibited the same year, Janelle Reiring of Metro Pictures Gallery notes, "It was her second show with us-with the Centerfolds series from 1981-that seemed to change everything." (J. Reiring quoted in S.P. Hanson, "Art Dossier: Cindy Sherman," Art+Auction, February 2012) Of the exhibition, art critic Peter Schjeldahl recalls his excitement, "I immediately called the two publications I wrote for only to discover that they had already assigned reviews. I had to write something that day, and it turned out to be a check." (P. Schjeldahl quoted in C. Vogel, "Cindy Sherman Unmasked," The New York Times, February 16, 2012) Following the exhibition, Sherman was invited to participate both in Documenta VII and the Venice Biennale. The Centerfold series became the catalyst that propelled Sherman's career from the insightfully spirited bourgeoning artist behind the Untitled Film Stills to the contemporary master we know today.
Inspired by the horizontal format of the open magazine, the series responded to the popular photo spreads made famous in the pages of Playboy. Designed to give maximum exposure to the female form in top-shelf magazines, the centerfold was the prime showground where women were looked at and admired. Reclaiming the format for her own aesthetic use, Sherman herself performs the role of a variety of emotionally suggestive but ambivalently distanced teens in an act to transform the layout where women were traditionally sexualized. The dramatically cropped corporeal presence of the Centerfolds are further sensationalized by the artist's use of colored gels and lights. Half repose in an air of uncanny tension, an eerie yellowish cast infiltrates the tousled blonde clad in tomboy chino clothes of Untitled (#94). Her piercing blue eyes dart out of the frame as to direct a challenging, yet slightly fearful gaze at an unseen visitor. Wrought with subdued emotional intensity, Untitled (#94) proposes the most powerful aspects of Sherman's acclaimed series.
All of the examples of the Centerfold series impart a sense of vulnerable inward consciousness. Each anticipates that something is about to happen. This implied anticipation derives from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, who knew how to tease the viewer by delaying the exposure of the exogenic potential threat, thereby causing the subject to look inward and question whether the threat exists before the event occurs.
Inspired by the horizontal format of the open magazine, the series responded to the popular photo spreads made famous in the pages of Playboy. Designed to give maximum exposure to the female form in top-shelf magazines, the centerfold was the prime showground where women were looked at and admired. Reclaiming the format for her own aesthetic use, Sherman herself performs the role of a variety of emotionally suggestive but ambivalently distanced teens in an act to transform the layout where women were traditionally sexualized. The dramatically cropped corporeal presence of the Centerfolds are further sensationalized by the artist's use of colored gels and lights. Half repose in an air of uncanny tension, an eerie yellowish cast infiltrates the tousled blonde clad in tomboy chino clothes of Untitled (#94). Her piercing blue eyes dart out of the frame as to direct a challenging, yet slightly fearful gaze at an unseen visitor. Wrought with subdued emotional intensity, Untitled (#94) proposes the most powerful aspects of Sherman's acclaimed series.
All of the examples of the Centerfold series impart a sense of vulnerable inward consciousness. Each anticipates that something is about to happen. This implied anticipation derives from the master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock, who knew how to tease the viewer by delaying the exposure of the exogenic potential threat, thereby causing the subject to look inward and question whether the threat exists before the event occurs.