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Lot Essay
A familiar scene with no certain or definable source, Cindy Sherman's Untitled #92 emerges as one of the most affecting photographs in the artist's oeuvre. Expressing the same terror as Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, or Janet Leigh in Psycho, Untitled #92 continues Sherman's epic saga of,as Danto coined in his in his introduction to the Film Stills, "The Girl in Trouble." Backed into a corner, Sherman's character is forcibly pushed to the floor, her fingers tightly and tensely holding her fear-ridden body in position, the young girl's eyes are simultaneously alarmed, anxious, and saddened; the terror is real. Cropped tightly around the victim, the ominous presence of the assailant is concealed from the viewer. With the fate of the Girl in Trouble unknown, Untitled #92 presents a very real and heightened sense of danger and suspense.
An evocative and outstanding example from Sherman's highly acclaimed Centerfolds series, the elongated horizontal format was inspired by the open spread of the magazine, Cindy Sherman's Centerfolds respond to the popular photo spreads made famous in the pages of Playboy magazine Designed to give maximum exposure to the female form in these top-shelf publications, the centerfold was the prime showground where women were looked at and admired. Untitled #92 reclaims this format for Sherman's own aesthetic use. Performing the role of a variety of emotionally suggestive, but ambivalently distanced teens, Sherman seizes back the layout where women were traditionally sexualized. The dramatically cropped corporeal presence of the Centerfolds is further sensationalized by the artist's use of eerily tinted colored gels and lights.
Although Sherman designed these images to resemble quick snapshots of a teenager's life, she heavily choreographed, acted in, and staged them herself. She is both the subject and executor of these images, and she takes the utmost care in both, as she develops her various guises and produces each photograph. She will dress the set, produce the costumes, design the lighting and finally execute the photograph entirely by herself, in her solitary world, without the use of assistants. By controlling every aspect of the image's production, she dispels the long-held belief that photography is the medium of "truth". She exposes it as being as manipulative as any other artistic medium, as the critic Roberta Smith pointed out when the Centerfolds made their debut in 1981. "The psychological weight of the work is so direct that at times it seems to free the viewer to see very clearly the formal manipulations which are at its source. Sherman makes you understand the components of photography with a particular bluntness which is one of her trademarks. The roles of color, light, cropping, space, eye contact (or lack of it) are continually stated and restated and we read them just as we do details of clothing, hairdo, posture, flooring. Despite all this the effect is not simply didactic; everything is both laid out and convincingly, ingenuously synthesized." (R. Smith, "Review: Cindy Sherman," Village Voice, New York, November 18, 1981).
Wrought with subdued emotional intensity, Untitled #92 proposes the most powerful aspects of Sherman's acclaimed series that simultaneously imparts a sense of vulnerable inward consciousness and anticipates that something is about to happen. Sherman achieves the series' striking artistry and emotional poignancy through her unique ability to create a seamless whole. She acts as a one-woman studio--as director, actor, photographer, costumer, set designer, lighting specialist, and make-up artist--expertly executing every portion of her creative concept. Each part works in unison and perfectly complements the others, creating a product that embodies her creative program without sacrificing any other aspects.
Originally commissioned by Ingrid Sischy, then editor of Artforum, the Centerfolds were ultimately never published in the magazine. Sischy feared that the pictures would be misunderstood just as Lynda Benglis had been in her infamous nude advertisement in the November 1974 issue. Notwithstanding, Sherman's Centerfold series did court controversy, becoming a source of intense debate and dividing critics over its implied social commentary. Contemporary critic Laura Mulvey understood the photograph as a comment on the "phallic male gaze" and the "fetishization" of women. As she explained, "[the Centerfolds] announce themselves as photographs and, as in a pinup, the model's eroticism, and her pose, are directed towards the camera, and ultimately towards the spectator" (L. Mulvey quoted in Cindy Sherman, exh.cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York 2012, p. 31).
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 Centerfolds 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.
An evocative and outstanding example from Sherman's highly acclaimed Centerfolds series, the elongated horizontal format was inspired by the open spread of the magazine, Cindy Sherman's Centerfolds respond to the popular photo spreads made famous in the pages of Playboy magazine Designed to give maximum exposure to the female form in these top-shelf publications, the centerfold was the prime showground where women were looked at and admired. Untitled #92 reclaims this format for Sherman's own aesthetic use. Performing the role of a variety of emotionally suggestive, but ambivalently distanced teens, Sherman seizes back the layout where women were traditionally sexualized. The dramatically cropped corporeal presence of the Centerfolds is further sensationalized by the artist's use of eerily tinted colored gels and lights.
Although Sherman designed these images to resemble quick snapshots of a teenager's life, she heavily choreographed, acted in, and staged them herself. She is both the subject and executor of these images, and she takes the utmost care in both, as she develops her various guises and produces each photograph. She will dress the set, produce the costumes, design the lighting and finally execute the photograph entirely by herself, in her solitary world, without the use of assistants. By controlling every aspect of the image's production, she dispels the long-held belief that photography is the medium of "truth". She exposes it as being as manipulative as any other artistic medium, as the critic Roberta Smith pointed out when the Centerfolds made their debut in 1981. "The psychological weight of the work is so direct that at times it seems to free the viewer to see very clearly the formal manipulations which are at its source. Sherman makes you understand the components of photography with a particular bluntness which is one of her trademarks. The roles of color, light, cropping, space, eye contact (or lack of it) are continually stated and restated and we read them just as we do details of clothing, hairdo, posture, flooring. Despite all this the effect is not simply didactic; everything is both laid out and convincingly, ingenuously synthesized." (R. Smith, "Review: Cindy Sherman," Village Voice, New York, November 18, 1981).
Wrought with subdued emotional intensity, Untitled #92 proposes the most powerful aspects of Sherman's acclaimed series that simultaneously imparts a sense of vulnerable inward consciousness and anticipates that something is about to happen. Sherman achieves the series' striking artistry and emotional poignancy through her unique ability to create a seamless whole. She acts as a one-woman studio--as director, actor, photographer, costumer, set designer, lighting specialist, and make-up artist--expertly executing every portion of her creative concept. Each part works in unison and perfectly complements the others, creating a product that embodies her creative program without sacrificing any other aspects.
Originally commissioned by Ingrid Sischy, then editor of Artforum, the Centerfolds were ultimately never published in the magazine. Sischy feared that the pictures would be misunderstood just as Lynda Benglis had been in her infamous nude advertisement in the November 1974 issue. Notwithstanding, Sherman's Centerfold series did court controversy, becoming a source of intense debate and dividing critics over its implied social commentary. Contemporary critic Laura Mulvey understood the photograph as a comment on the "phallic male gaze" and the "fetishization" of women. As she explained, "[the Centerfolds] announce themselves as photographs and, as in a pinup, the model's eroticism, and her pose, are directed towards the camera, and ultimately towards the spectator" (L. Mulvey quoted in Cindy Sherman, exh.cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York 2012, p. 31).
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 Centerfolds 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.