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Lot Essay
The 'Centerfold' series, a turning-point in Cindy Sherman's career, was commissioned in 1981 by the magazine 'ArtForum' as double-page spreads in landscape-cinemascope format. The woman played by Sherman in this series is successively victimised or waiting for romance; she passively or miserably undulates on the floors and beds, crawling through the horizontal set and confirming French film-maker Jean-Luc Godard when he affirms that "the only thing Cinemascope is good for is to film snakes and corpses" (In: R. Krauss, 'Cindy Sherman. 1975-1993', New York 1993, p. 89.)
In this series of pastiches, which are key to understanding Sherman's reconstruction of a female archetype, 'Untitled #95' carries a particular significance. It is the penultimate centrefold and, as such, marks a rupture: it is the only work from the series in which Sherman so spectacularly sits upright on the bed and breaks her submission to the horizontal format. It also marks a turning point by staging a strong backlighting. This device, which creates a radiant if not mystical halo surrounding her hair, establishes a crucial link between her 1980 'Backscreen-projection' series and her later 'Fashion' pictures.
In this series of pastiches, which are key to understanding Sherman's reconstruction of a female archetype, 'Untitled #95' carries a particular significance. It is the penultimate centrefold and, as such, marks a rupture: it is the only work from the series in which Sherman so spectacularly sits upright on the bed and breaks her submission to the horizontal format. It also marks a turning point by staging a strong backlighting. This device, which creates a radiant if not mystical halo surrounding her hair, establishes a crucial link between her 1980 'Backscreen-projection' series and her later 'Fashion' pictures.