.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
'[The clown] is our escort and guide as we plunge into the world of the grotesque... We stand, with the clown, on the brink of infinite possibilities, waiting expectantly for the unimaginable performances that are still to come' (C. Sherman, quoted in Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Jeu de Paume, Paris, 2006, p. 268).
'What attracted me to clowns was the possibility of stepping into different clown personalities that allowed me multiple layers of meaning: the potential of being sad, disturbed, a psycho killer. I'm interested in what I imagine about the person who's made up as a clown. The greatest challenge for me was to allow a personality to emerge from behind the clown make-up: a personality that has nothing to do with my own. It was important to me that each one of these personalities looks different: I wanted in a way to find something behind the make-up, something that shimmers through' (C. Sherman, quoted in M. Schülter, Cindy Sherman: Clowns, Hanover 2004, p. 54).
'I came to clowns to show the complex emotional abysses of a painted smile' (C. Sherman, quoted in M. Schülter, Cindy Sherman: Clowns, Hanover, 2004 p. 54).
Masquerading as a cowgirl clown, the transformative quality of Cindy Sherman's self-portrait practice is embodied in Untitled (#410). Executed in 2003, another edition of the work was included in the artist's solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art of the same year. Cindy Sherman's Clowns series represents a culmination of the artist's performative photographic process, defined by her ability to bring to life characters through makeup, prosthetics, and clothing. From her earliest explorations into the genre of self-portraiture, Sherman has used costume as an important prop to produce a myriad of different characters, starting in her earliest Film Stills from the 1970s, through her History Portraits and Fairy Tales series. Sherman's stylistic stamp has ensured that each self-portrait is always and never the artist herself. Remarking on this slippage between character and self, art critic Craig Owens suggests 'while her photographs are always self-portraits, in them the artist never appears to be the same, indeed, not even the same model. While we can presume to recognise the same persona, we are forced at the same time to recognise a trembling around the edges of that identity' (C. Owens, quoted in R. Steiner 'Cast of Characters', Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Serpentine Gallery, London, 2003, p. 7).
Each Clown from the series was created to form a cast of characters, each reflecting a particular emotion and persona. In Untitled (#410), the jaunty cowgirl hat and splendid silken costume adds a carefree innocence to the rare female clown; her naivety in contrast to some of the more sinister masculine characters from the series. Speaking of her Clowns, Sherman recalls, 'what attracted me to clowns was the possibility of stepping into different clown personalities that allowed me multiple layers of meaning: the potential of being sad, disturbed, a psycho killer.
I'm interested in what I imagine about the person who's made up as a clown. The greatest challenge for me was to allow a personality to emerge from behind the clown make-up: a personality that has nothing to do with my own. It was important to me that each one of these personalities looks different: I wanted in a way to find something behind the make-up, something that shimmers through' (C. Sherman, quoted in M. Schülter, Cindy Sherman: Clowns, Hanover 2004, p. 54).
Evolving from Sherman's Hollywood/Hamptons series of portraits which feature a cast of swaggering, would-be actors, the artist's investigation into the artificiality of identity and contemporary obsessions with falsifying of the body is distilled in the Clowns. Indeed, who else so easily changes their nose, their clothes, and their hair to entertain? In the Clowns, the presence of the comical false nose and cheeks belongs to both the clown and the artist, in acknowledgement of this theatre of production. Sherman presents these women simply as typified characters against a neutral background, further manipulating the notion of conventional portraiture. Extending from this, Untitled (#410) emits a staged quality of an entertainer's headshot, set against the dazzling day-glo backdrop, her face posed in an eager grin.
Perhaps the closest iteration of a self-portrait of the artist, Eva Respini, curator of Sherman's recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art suggests, 'the clown can be seen as a stand-in for the artist, who is expected to entertain in the contemporary circus of society' (E. Respini, quoted in Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p. 45). The clown herself, with her performer's ritual of 'getting into character' through greasepaint and costume, speaks so closely to Sherman's own metamorphosis through her photography.
'What attracted me to clowns was the possibility of stepping into different clown personalities that allowed me multiple layers of meaning: the potential of being sad, disturbed, a psycho killer. I'm interested in what I imagine about the person who's made up as a clown. The greatest challenge for me was to allow a personality to emerge from behind the clown make-up: a personality that has nothing to do with my own. It was important to me that each one of these personalities looks different: I wanted in a way to find something behind the make-up, something that shimmers through' (C. Sherman, quoted in M. Schülter, Cindy Sherman: Clowns, Hanover 2004, p. 54).
'I came to clowns to show the complex emotional abysses of a painted smile' (C. Sherman, quoted in M. Schülter, Cindy Sherman: Clowns, Hanover, 2004 p. 54).
Masquerading as a cowgirl clown, the transformative quality of Cindy Sherman's self-portrait practice is embodied in Untitled (#410). Executed in 2003, another edition of the work was included in the artist's solo exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, London and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art of the same year. Cindy Sherman's Clowns series represents a culmination of the artist's performative photographic process, defined by her ability to bring to life characters through makeup, prosthetics, and clothing. From her earliest explorations into the genre of self-portraiture, Sherman has used costume as an important prop to produce a myriad of different characters, starting in her earliest Film Stills from the 1970s, through her History Portraits and Fairy Tales series. Sherman's stylistic stamp has ensured that each self-portrait is always and never the artist herself. Remarking on this slippage between character and self, art critic Craig Owens suggests 'while her photographs are always self-portraits, in them the artist never appears to be the same, indeed, not even the same model. While we can presume to recognise the same persona, we are forced at the same time to recognise a trembling around the edges of that identity' (C. Owens, quoted in R. Steiner 'Cast of Characters', Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Serpentine Gallery, London, 2003, p. 7).
Each Clown from the series was created to form a cast of characters, each reflecting a particular emotion and persona. In Untitled (#410), the jaunty cowgirl hat and splendid silken costume adds a carefree innocence to the rare female clown; her naivety in contrast to some of the more sinister masculine characters from the series. Speaking of her Clowns, Sherman recalls, 'what attracted me to clowns was the possibility of stepping into different clown personalities that allowed me multiple layers of meaning: the potential of being sad, disturbed, a psycho killer.
I'm interested in what I imagine about the person who's made up as a clown. The greatest challenge for me was to allow a personality to emerge from behind the clown make-up: a personality that has nothing to do with my own. It was important to me that each one of these personalities looks different: I wanted in a way to find something behind the make-up, something that shimmers through' (C. Sherman, quoted in M. Schülter, Cindy Sherman: Clowns, Hanover 2004, p. 54).
Evolving from Sherman's Hollywood/Hamptons series of portraits which feature a cast of swaggering, would-be actors, the artist's investigation into the artificiality of identity and contemporary obsessions with falsifying of the body is distilled in the Clowns. Indeed, who else so easily changes their nose, their clothes, and their hair to entertain? In the Clowns, the presence of the comical false nose and cheeks belongs to both the clown and the artist, in acknowledgement of this theatre of production. Sherman presents these women simply as typified characters against a neutral background, further manipulating the notion of conventional portraiture. Extending from this, Untitled (#410) emits a staged quality of an entertainer's headshot, set against the dazzling day-glo backdrop, her face posed in an eager grin.
Perhaps the closest iteration of a self-portrait of the artist, Eva Respini, curator of Sherman's recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art suggests, 'the clown can be seen as a stand-in for the artist, who is expected to entertain in the contemporary circus of society' (E. Respini, quoted in Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p. 45). The clown herself, with her performer's ritual of 'getting into character' through greasepaint and costume, speaks so closely to Sherman's own metamorphosis through her photography.