Cindy Sherman Glen Ridge, New Jersey, USA, b. 1954
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Mood Board. Cindy Sherman at her studio in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Ethan James Green for WSJ. Magazine -
Cindy Sherman is among the defining artists of her generation, whose work has profoundly reshaped contemporary photography and the language of self-representation.
Lives and works in New York
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Through her meticulously constructed self-portraits, she explores how images form identity and influence the way culture perceives itself.
Emerging in the late 1970s as part of The Pictures Generation—alongside Richard Prince, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, and Robert Longo—Sherman became known for her incisive dialogue with the visual codes of mass media. This movement examined how meaning is produced and circulated through advertising, cinema, and popular imagery, questioning the very notion of originality in a culture of repetition.
Sherman’s method is inseparable from performance. Working alone, she inhabits every role within her creative process—photographer, model, director, stylist, and make-up artist—building entire worlds within the frame. Each image is both illusion and revelation, where her shifting personas—Hollywood heroines, clowns, socialites, and anonymous figures—reflect the instability and multiplicity of contemporary identity.At the core of her practice lies a sustained investigation into the mechanisms of representation. By reworking archetypes of femininity, authority, and desire, Sherman exposes the narratives embedded in visual culture and the unconscious ways they shape perception. Her later works, which employ digital manipulation, extend this inquiry into the realm of simulation—introducing new layers of psychological nuance and visual ambiguity.
Sherman’s work has been the subject of major retrospectives at The Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, The National Portrait Gallery in London, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Her photographs are held in the permanent collections of Tate Modern, Centre Pompidou, The Art Institute of Chicago, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), among many others. -
Works
Cindy Sherman Glen Ridge, New Jersey, USA, b. 1954
Untitled #408, 2002Color photograph139,7 × 94 cmFurther images
This series, created between 2000 and 2002, captures archetypes from suburban American life through a more traditional approach to portraiture. The images present seemingly unremarkable characters—figures one might encounter in...This series, created between 2000 and 2002, captures archetypes from suburban American life through a more traditional approach to portraiture. The images present seemingly unremarkable characters—figures one might encounter in everyday life—yet their exaggerated makeup and carefully constructed appearances hint at deeper narratives. Whether an aging socialite or a former film star, each portrait blurs the line between individual identity and cultural stereotype, revealing aspirations, illusions, and the passage of time.
"I wanted pretty pictures of older women - women who are trying too hard but succeeding - pulling off an extreme look. What I didn't know would creep into the portraits was a vulnerability behind the strong facade that most of them wear." – Cindy Sherman
Exhibitions
Jeu de Paume, Paris; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria; Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Copenhagen; Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin (2006–2007)
Big Photos. Russel Bowman Fine Art, Chicago, 2004
Cindy Sherman. Serpentine Gallery, London; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 2003Publications
Marybeth Sollins (ed.). Transformation. Art: 21 #5, Art 21 Inc., New York, 2009. p. 202
Sara Stevenson and Duncan Forbes, A Companion Guide to Photography in the National Galleries of Scotland, The National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh, 2009. p. 202
Marybeth Sollins (ed.). Transformation. Art: 21 #5, Art 21 Inc., New York, 2009. pp. 190-203
The Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and D.A.P., New York, 2008. pp. 40-41, Cindy Sherman. Edited by Francesco Bonami, Supercontemporary series, Electa, Milan, (monograph), 2007. p. 91
Error! Contact not defined: Une Vision Qui Se Deploie. Interviewed by Arthur Danto, Art Press, May, 2006. pp. 24–31
Julie Rouart (ed.), Cindy Sherman, Jeu de Paume & Flammarion, Paris, 2006
Cindy Sherman, Serpentine Gallery, London, 20031/ 2News-
Yasumasa Morimura, Cindy Sherman | Masquerades
December 14, 2024 – May 5, 2025 | M+, Hong KongThe exhibition traces the genesis of their practices, which reimagine iconic imagery from art history, cinema, and media culture. These creative acts of masquerade not only emulate the source material,... -
Cindy Sherman | Cindy Sherman – Tapestries
February 4 – June 5, 2023 | ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, DenmarkThese startling images, commenting on the phenomenon of face altering apps/applications, have now been given a new grandeur and permanent status using the fine and revered craft of tapestry. In... -
Cindy Sherman | A retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton
April 1 – August 31, 2020 | Fondation Louis Vuitton, ParisThe first Cindy Sherman exhibition to be presented in France for 14 years at Fondation Louis Vuitton. The display was designed in close collaboration with Cindy Sherman and covers her...
