Untitled No. 92

Details

Cindy Sherman (b. 1954)
Untitled No. 92
signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman 1981 8/10' (on the reverse)
color coupler print
23 1/8 x 47¼ in. (58.9 x 120.1 cm.)
Executed in 1981. This work is number eight from an edition of ten.

Provenance

Metro Pictures, New York
Private Collection, Zurich
Pace Wildenstein, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1998

Literature

P. Schjeldahl, "Shermanettes," Art in America, vol. 70, no. 3, March 1982, p. 111 (another example illustrated).
P. Schjeldahl and I. M. Danoff, Cindy Sherman, New York, 1984, no. 56 (another example illustrated).
S. Rogers-Rafferty, Jenny Holzer, Cindy Sherman: Personnae, Cinncinati, 1986, p. 16 (another example illustrated).
R. Krauss, Cindy Sherman 1975-1993, New York, 1993, pp. 88-89 and 227 (another example illustrated in color).
M. Vilas and V. Carreó, eds., Cindy Sherman: Una Seleción de las colleciones de la Eli Broad Family Foundation, Caracas, 1997, n.p. (another example illustrated).
E. Janus, ed., Veronica's Revenge: Contemporary Perspectives in Photography, Zurich, 1998, pp. 70-71 (another example illustrated).
G. Knape, ed., The Hasselblad Award: Cindy Sherman, Götenborg, 2000, p. 10 (another example illustrated).

Exhibited

The Saint Louis Art Museum, Currents 20: Cindy Sherman, March-April 1983, no. 92 (another example illustrated).
Phoenix Art Museum, Altered Egos: Samaras, Sherman, Wegman, January-February 1986 (another example illustrated; also illustrated in the brochure).
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, July-October 1987, p. 18, no. 56 (another example illustrated).
Tel Aviv Art Museum, Cindy Sherman, June-August 1993 (another example illustrated).
Geneva, Centre d'art contemporain; Arles, Recontres Internationales de la Photographie; Musée national d'histoire et d'art casino Luxembourg and Congrescos e Exposicions de Ponteverda, Veronica's Revenge, June 1997-November 1999 (another example exhibited).
Los Angeles, The Museum of Contemporary Art; The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; Prague, Galerie Rudolfinum; London, Barbican Art Gallery; Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux; Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art and Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Cindy Sherman Retrospective, November 1997-January 2000, pp. 104 and 197, pl. 75 (another example illustrated in color).
Sydney, Museum of Contemporary Art, Veronica's Revenge, November 2000-March 2001 (another example exhibited).
New York, Skarstedt Fine Art, Cindy Sherman Centerfolds, Mary-June 2003, p. 49, no. 8 (another example illustrated in color).
Paris, Jeu de paume; Kunsthaus Bregenz; Humblebaek, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art and Berlin, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Cindy Sherman, May 2006-September 2007, pp. 78-79, 249 and 317 (another example illustrated in color).

Sale room notice

Please note that this lot is owned by the Trimix Foundation and is exempt from sales tax as set forth in the Sales Tax Notice at the back of the catalogue.

Lot Essay

"Compared to the movie stills, these images have an edge of almost documentary-like realism. They hint at a codified style of pulp illustration, but still remain realistic...

In place of the extreme variety of her previous work, Sherman seems here to work for a consistency of psychological tone, as if to show how many situations and characters can feel almost nearly alike, how many different ways the same feeling, or variations on it, can come up for different women, regardless of age, intelligence, or background. (The classlessness of these images, after the clear codification of the movie-stills women, is another interesting issue.)

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 it's 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).

Untitled No. 92

Lot Essay

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