Cindy Sherman, now 61, has created an unmistakable and seminal body of work that broke new ground in photography. Throughout her career she has simultaneously acted as her own actress and photographer, subject and object. And yet her portraits do not represent actual personalities. Instead they paraphrase social and cultural stereotypes with the aim of deconstructing them through the prism of cinema, classical painting, or advertising.The exhibition ‘Cindy Sherman – Works from the Olbricht Collection’ on display at the me Collectors Room Berlin, features 65 photographs by the artist. Including works from almost all periods of her career, the collection provides a remarkable overview of the entire body of work. An enormous inspiration to all those contemplating on portrait photography and selfie culture.
As a result of the high level of interest, the exhibition has now been extended until 28 August 2016. We give away 2×2 tickets, kindly sponsored by me Collectors Room Berlin / Stiftung Olbricht. Simply post the reason why you would love to have the free tickets to #portraitofberlin #me_collectors. We will reach out to the winners by Friday, 01.04.2016.
If you don’t know much about Cindy Sherman yet, you may want to start the exhibition watching the film Nobody’s Here But Me (1994) that you will find presented in one of the rooms. Cindy Sherman reflects on the themes of her work since the late 1970s. Contributing her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera, the film explores her interests and enthusiasms. A great range of unexpected sources is unveiled, ranging from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, providing a very personal introduction to the artist’s character and ideas.
Also available to visitors is a free app featuring a video tour through the exhibition and more details on the works on display.
Variously casting herself as an ingénue at the sink in black-and-white of the 1950s, a gold-blonde ‘Maria Lactans’ with a vacant expression and plastic breast, or an aging upper-class beauty wearing far too much jewelry and much too much makeup, New York based artist Cindy Sherman is a master of masquerade.
The exhibition has been curated in close collaboration with Cindy Sherman in person.
The artist became widely known in the 1970s with her black-and-white series ‘Untitled Film Stills’, in which she embodied a range of stereotypical female figures from the 1940s and 1950s, posing in what appeared to be movie stills. The 1980s brought not only a shift into colour and large formats, but, with her popular ‘Centerfolds’, her major breakthrough. Provocatively evocative of Playboy magazine angles and lighting, the series showed women in various states of mysterious emotional crisis.
In all her series, Sherman presents us with a subtle analysis of contemporary cultural tropes, draws attention to the power of symbolism and the struggle of the individual against collective stereotype.