Cindy Sherman: Retrospective - Softcover

Cruz, Amanda; Jones, Amelia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 050027987X ISBN 13: 9780500279878

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 2000

Synopsis

This comprehensive catalogue traces the career of Cindy Sherman, examining her achievements as one of the leading American artists of our time. By exploring the myriad constructions of female identity and the body in our culture, Sherman imitates and confronts assorted representational stereotypes, becoming for many an icon of the contemporary concerns of feminism and postmodernism.
Essayists Amada Cruz, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Amelia Jones offer keen insight and observations from several distinct vantage points, demonstrating that Sherman's work is a lens through which to view contemporary art and its ongoing concern with the profound issues of the structures of the self. More than 200 images show the breadth of Sherman's body of work, from the Untitled Film Stills of the 1970s to series such as Centerfolds, Fashion, Disasters, Fairy Tales, and History Portraits, as well as photographs influenced by surrealist artists. Also included are intriguing excerpts from Sherman's notebooks, selections from her contact sheets, and numerous Polaroid studies, all of which shed light on the artist's process.

About this title

About the Author:

Amanda Cruz is the Manilow Curator of Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Elizabeth A. T. Smith is Curator at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Amelia Jones is an associate professor of contemporary art and theory and the history of photography at the University of California, Riverside.

From Booklist:

Cindy Sherman has taken self-portraiture and masquerade to the highest heights and the campiest lows, bringing the shady ambience of B-movies to art photography while exploring the plexus of narcissism, from its silliest manifestations to its most provocative expressions. Sherman explores the implications of role-playing and fantasy, seeing and being seen, and society's perceptions of women, eroticism, and consumerism in her photographs, creating resonant images and supplying art critics with much grist for their mills. In her contribution to this retrospective volume, Amelia Jones begins with the remark that "much ink has been spilled over Cindy Sherman," and, obviously, the flow continues, but Jones, Cruz, and their colleagues provide just the sort of commentary Sherman's work demands, and the photographs themselves are engaging, both viscerally and intellectually. Sherman has been in costume before her own camera for more than 20 years, earning the right to a major traveling exhibition and speculation as to what she'll come up with next. How many selves can a self be? Stay tuned. Donna Seaman

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 050027987X
• ISBN 13: 9780500279878
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 220