In a pensive sort of mood, 11/1/2017
12 x 10 inchesIn a pensive sort of mood, 11/1/2017, 2020
paper: 12 x 10 inches
image: 8 7/8 6 3/4 inches
frame: 12 1/2 x 14 1/2 inches
Open Edition
Unnumbered and Unsigned as published
Published by States of Change, with their stamp verso
Matted and framed with UV plexiglass in a black wood frame
Literature
Ugly Beauty, New York Times, By Parul Sehgal, October 5, 2018
Despite her aversion to selfies, describing them as "vulgar," Cindy Sherman has embraced Instagram to create a distinctive series of images that diverge from her usual style. Known for her narrative-rich photographs hinting at complex psychologies, Sherman's Instagram series stands out as she departs from recognizable archetypes.
Despite her aversion to selfies, describing them as "vulgar," Cindy Sherman has embraced Instagram to create a distinctive series of images that diverge from her usual style. Known for her narrative-rich photographs hinting at complex psychologies, Sherman's Instagram series stands out as she departs from recognizable archetypes. Unlike her previous work, these mock self-portraits feature ordinary people, exaggerated into cartoonish caricatures. They represent some of the first pure protagonists in Sherman's oeuvre—individuals who are not metaphors but gloriously and catastrophically themselves. While distorted, the Instagram portraits, all of the artist's own face, read as classical and offer a true impression of diverse individual "sitters," challenging traditional notions of voyeurism and subject-object dynamics in portraiture.
In May 2017 Cindy Sherman began posting a series of cartoonish, caricatured photographs
Cindy Sherman unveiled her latest collection of approximately 30 new works at Hauser & Wirth 18 January – 16 March 2024 which is directly influenced by the Instagram portraits. Since the early 2000s, she has constructed personae using digital manipulation, meditating on the increasingly fractured sense of self in 21st century society and continuing an artistic exploration that has uniquely encapsulated her oeuvre since the outset of her career.
In these latest works, Sherman has collaged various elements of her own face to construct entirely new characters, using digital manipulation to emphasize layered details and underscore the malleability of the self. She has removed external context, eschewing any mise-en-scène, to focus completely on the details of the face and head. Here, she combines a digital collaging technique that incorporates both black and white and color photographs with more traditional methods of transformation, like make-up, wigs and costumery, to create a group of unsettling portraits of women who laugh, wince, smirk and grimace at the viewer.
