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Lot Essay
The pinnacle of her iconic Centerfolds series, Untitled ranks among Cindy Sherman’s most important works. Bathed in an evocative amber light, the enigmatic mise-en-scène that Sherman creates elicits an altogether hypnotic pull upon the viewer. Peering down upon the young protagonist, we enter a private world where the artist herself is transformed into an adolescent girl dressed in a gingham skirt and orange sweater. In this, and others from the Centerfolds series, Sherman’s work achieves a new level of maturity and finesse.
Widely regarded as one of her most significant bodies of work, the Centerfolds marked an important moment in Sherman’s career, sparking vociferous debate when they were first exhibited November of 1981. The curator Lisa Phillips has described them as “an astonishing tour-de-force,” and the art critic Peter Schjeldahl claimed, “[they] cracked my personal top-ten list of life-changing epiphanies” (L. Phillips, “Cindy Shermans Cindy Sherrmans,” exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, 1987, p. 14, and P. Schjeldahl, “Valley of the Dolls,” The New Yorker, June 7, 1999, p. 95).
Among her prodigious oeuvre, Untitled is one of her most recognizable images. Challenging assumptions about the veracity of photography, together with the male construction of the female narrative, it has graced the cover of numerous exhibition catalogues including the artist’s seminal 1997 retrospective originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, along with a 2007 monograph authored by Francesco Stocchi, and a stand-alone publication on the work published by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Untitled has also been included in every major traveling exhibition of Sherman’s work, going back to her first large-scale traveling museum show in 1984, at the Akron Art Museum (and which later traveled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York).
An early supporter of her work, the Akron Art Museum acquired the present work directly from the Centerfolds exhibit at Metro Pictures in November of 1981. At least three other examples from the edition are in the collections of major museums, including The Art Institute of Chicago (a gift of the Edlis Neeson Collection); The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
The twelve photographs of the Centerfolds series depict young women in personal, intimate terms. Often reclining, crouching, or lying on a bed or sofa, they elicit a melancholy or troubled mood. Some are staring off into space, some dreaming or longing, but left alone within their own private ruminations. In Untitled , we look down on a young girl, supine on the faux-brick linoleum floor. Wearing a hand-made gingham skirt and an orange sweater, she is the picture of troubled adolescence, clutching a torn wanted ad from the newspaper with the headline: “Single?”
Whereas her earlier Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) could be understood as a sort of pastiche of Hollywood films, Sherman’s Centerfolds are more introspective in tone, with the artist giving more and more agency to the heroines of each frame. In Untitled , the extreme close-up vantage point and the larger scale work in tandem with the colored filters, or gels, that cast the entire image in a dreamy amber light. “Sherman uses color to great expressive effect,” the curator Eva Respini explained, writing in Sherman’s 2012 retrospective catalogue for the Museum of Modern Art, “as in Untitled #96, where the warm glow of the orange sweater of the girl lying on the floor, clutching a lonely-hearts ad, contributes to her seemingly dreamy state” (E. Respini, Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p. 31).
Sherman has explained her own interpretation of the story behind Untitled, in 1987, for the Akron Art Museum. She said, "I was thinking of a young girl who may have been cleaning the kitchen for her mother and who ripped something out of the newspaper, something asking 'Are you lonely?' or 'Do you want to be friends?' or 'Do you want to go on a vacation?' She's cleaning the floor, she rips this out and she's thinking about it,” she explained. (C. Sherman quoted in P. Schjeldahl, Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Akron Art Museum, 1987, p. 11).
"[...]the warm glow of the orange sweater of the girl lying on the floor, clutching a lonely-hearts ad, contributes to her seemingly dreamy state." Eva Respini
Some critics have been disturbed by what they perceived to be an ominous sense of uneasiness portrayed in the Centerfolds series. Like allusions to the Classical nude, although none of the images are overtly sexual or violent, they nevertheless provoked viewers into examining their own subconscious impulses and underlying assumptions when they looked at them.
This certainly is the case in Untitled , as certain elements begin to complicate our reading of the initial image. For instance, the girl's leg is bent backwards at an unnatural angle, showing a dirty white canvas shoe, and her orange skirt is flipped open along the edge. Certain other elements are at odds with the childish naiveté of her skirt and sweater set, including her vampish red nail polish and the crumpled newspaper ad. Herein lies Sherman’s seemingly effortless capacity to engage her viewers in these compelling images, as they often leave us with more questions than answers.
Coming of age in New York in the 1970s, Cindy Sherman developed associations with many of the artists who became known as the Pictures Generation, including Richard Prince, Louise Lawler, David Salle, Jack Goldstein and Sherrie Levine. In contrast to the unbridled optimism of the boomer generation, this new group of artists responded to the social and political upheaval of the ‘60s and and ‘70s. In the spectre of the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal and the looming economic and political turmoil of that decade, these artists began to think critically about the information being transmitted and received. By looking closely at TV, magazines, movies and newspapers, they acknowledged that personal identity, in particular, was not innate, but rather constructed by an artificial set of social norms. Cindy Sherman’s Centerfolds, when considered alongside these visual and critical strategies, take on greater meaning and significance.
Widely regarded as one of her most significant bodies of work, the Centerfolds marked an important moment in Sherman’s career, sparking vociferous debate when they were first exhibited November of 1981. The curator Lisa Phillips has described them as “an astonishing tour-de-force,” and the art critic Peter Schjeldahl claimed, “[they] cracked my personal top-ten list of life-changing epiphanies” (L. Phillips, “Cindy Shermans Cindy Sherrmans,” exh. cat., Whitney Museum of American Art, 1987, p. 14, and P. Schjeldahl, “Valley of the Dolls,” The New Yorker, June 7, 1999, p. 95).
Among her prodigious oeuvre, Untitled is one of her most recognizable images. Challenging assumptions about the veracity of photography, together with the male construction of the female narrative, it has graced the cover of numerous exhibition catalogues including the artist’s seminal 1997 retrospective originating at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, along with a 2007 monograph authored by Francesco Stocchi, and a stand-alone publication on the work published by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Untitled has also been included in every major traveling exhibition of Sherman’s work, going back to her first large-scale traveling museum show in 1984, at the Akron Art Museum (and which later traveled to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York).
An early supporter of her work, the Akron Art Museum acquired the present work directly from the Centerfolds exhibit at Metro Pictures in November of 1981. At least three other examples from the edition are in the collections of major museums, including The Art Institute of Chicago (a gift of the Edlis Neeson Collection); The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
The twelve photographs of the Centerfolds series depict young women in personal, intimate terms. Often reclining, crouching, or lying on a bed or sofa, they elicit a melancholy or troubled mood. Some are staring off into space, some dreaming or longing, but left alone within their own private ruminations. In Untitled , we look down on a young girl, supine on the faux-brick linoleum floor. Wearing a hand-made gingham skirt and an orange sweater, she is the picture of troubled adolescence, clutching a torn wanted ad from the newspaper with the headline: “Single?”
Whereas her earlier Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) could be understood as a sort of pastiche of Hollywood films, Sherman’s Centerfolds are more introspective in tone, with the artist giving more and more agency to the heroines of each frame. In Untitled , the extreme close-up vantage point and the larger scale work in tandem with the colored filters, or gels, that cast the entire image in a dreamy amber light. “Sherman uses color to great expressive effect,” the curator Eva Respini explained, writing in Sherman’s 2012 retrospective catalogue for the Museum of Modern Art, “as in Untitled #96, where the warm glow of the orange sweater of the girl lying on the floor, clutching a lonely-hearts ad, contributes to her seemingly dreamy state” (E. Respini, Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p. 31).
Sherman has explained her own interpretation of the story behind Untitled, in 1987, for the Akron Art Museum. She said, "I was thinking of a young girl who may have been cleaning the kitchen for her mother and who ripped something out of the newspaper, something asking 'Are you lonely?' or 'Do you want to be friends?' or 'Do you want to go on a vacation?' She's cleaning the floor, she rips this out and she's thinking about it,” she explained. (C. Sherman quoted in P. Schjeldahl, Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Akron Art Museum, 1987, p. 11).
"[...]the warm glow of the orange sweater of the girl lying on the floor, clutching a lonely-hearts ad, contributes to her seemingly dreamy state." Eva Respini
Some critics have been disturbed by what they perceived to be an ominous sense of uneasiness portrayed in the Centerfolds series. Like allusions to the Classical nude, although none of the images are overtly sexual or violent, they nevertheless provoked viewers into examining their own subconscious impulses and underlying assumptions when they looked at them.
This certainly is the case in Untitled , as certain elements begin to complicate our reading of the initial image. For instance, the girl's leg is bent backwards at an unnatural angle, showing a dirty white canvas shoe, and her orange skirt is flipped open along the edge. Certain other elements are at odds with the childish naiveté of her skirt and sweater set, including her vampish red nail polish and the crumpled newspaper ad. Herein lies Sherman’s seemingly effortless capacity to engage her viewers in these compelling images, as they often leave us with more questions than answers.
Coming of age in New York in the 1970s, Cindy Sherman developed associations with many of the artists who became known as the Pictures Generation, including Richard Prince, Louise Lawler, David Salle, Jack Goldstein and Sherrie Levine. In contrast to the unbridled optimism of the boomer generation, this new group of artists responded to the social and political upheaval of the ‘60s and and ‘70s. In the spectre of the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal and the looming economic and political turmoil of that decade, these artists began to think critically about the information being transmitted and received. By looking closely at TV, magazines, movies and newspapers, they acknowledged that personal identity, in particular, was not innate, but rather constructed by an artificial set of social norms. Cindy Sherman’s Centerfolds, when considered alongside these visual and critical strategies, take on greater meaning and significance.