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Cindy Sherman [Hardcover]

Eva Respini , Johanna Burton , Cindy Sherman , John Waters
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)

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Book Description

February 29, 2012
Published to accompany the first major survey of Cindy Sherman's work in the United States in nearly 15 years, this publication presents a stunning range of work from the groundbreaking artist's 35-year career. Showcasing approximately 180 photographs from the mid-1970s to the present, including new works made for the exhibition and never before published, the volume is a vivid exploration of Sherman's sustained investigation into the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation. The book highlights major bodies of work including her seminal Untitled Film Stills (1977-80); centerfolds (1981); history portraits (1989-90); head shots (2000-2002); and two recent series on the experience and representation of aging in the context of contemporary obsessions with youth and status. An essay by curator Eva Respini provides an overview of Sherman's career, weaving together art historical analysis and discussions of the artist's working methods, and a contribution by art historian Johanna Burton offers a critical re-examination of Sherman's work in light of her recent series. A conversation between Cindy Sherman and filmmaker John Waters provides an enlightening view into the creative process.
Cindy Sherman (born 1954) is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. To create her photographs, she assumes multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser and stylist. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics and props, the artist has altered her physique and surroundings to create myriad tableaux, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite. Over the past 35 years, Sherman has sustained a provocative investigation into the nature of identity, drawn from movies, television, magazines, the Internet and art history. Sherman lives and works in New York City.

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Cindy Sherman + Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills + Nan Goldin
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Editorial Reviews

Review

A more than 30-year survey of Sherman's roles in front of the camera (movie star, housewife, aristocrat) and behind it (photographer, art director, stylist). (American Photo 20121101)

This overview is the most comprehensive to date because it clearly documents transformations in [Cindy Sherman's] well-known serial self-portraiture. Sherman is celebrated as the quintessential conceptual artist who uses photography. In an essay, exhibition curator Respini describes Sherman as an artist who fully represents today's prevalent "culture of the cultivated self." More adeptly than past writers, Respini firmly situates Sherman among contemporaries like Eleanor Antin, Hannah Wilke, Suzy Lake, and Adrian Piper...Highly recommended. (M. R. Vendryes Choice 20120801)

Eva Respini, the curator of the MoMA exhibition and the museum's curator of photography, begins her catalogue essay with some of the misreadings that have dogged Sherman's work, and lists the sucessive waves of critical theories that have claimed the artist as their own, including "postmodernism, feminism, psychoanalytic theories of the male gaze and the culture of the spectacle". (Liz Jobey The Art Newspaper 20120701)

Cindy Sherman has explored different kinds of photography, but she has become one of the most lauded artists of her generation for her photographs of her impersonations. Since she arrived on the scene, in a 1980 exhibition, when she was in her mid-twenties, she has come before her own camera in the guise of hundreds of characters, and as an impersonator--which in her case means being a creator of people, and sometimes people-like creatures, who we encounter only in a single photograph--she has been remarkably inventive. (Sanford Schwartz The New York Review of Books 20120607)

No feature of a Sherman image is there by accident or as a matter of convenience. These grand backdrops are legacy monuments of the older plutocracy, left as a democratic inheritance, belittling the imagination and attainments of the present-day .01 percent. As her own works have come to count among the prized trophies of that demographic, Sherman seeds into these images a grandeur belonging to a past that no private individual can now claim or master. (Thomas Crow Artforum 20120501)

Ever since her student efforts in the 1970s, she has been exploring the complex territory of constructing a self for the camera - a focus that placed her squarely at the forefront of postmodern theory. Nevertheless, it is still surprising to see the great variety of work she has produced from this single-minded inquiry. Her landmark achievement, "Untitled Film Stills," created between 1977 and 1980, surveys the history of women in cinema, using little more than makeup and wigs. (Barbara Pollack ARTnews 20120501)

At many points throughout this dense, often exciting show . we are confronted by an artist with an urgent, singularly personal vision, who for the past 35 years has consistently and provocatively turned photography against itself. She comes across here as an increasingly vehement avenging angel waging a kind of war with the camera, using it to expose what might be called both the tyranny and the inner lives of images, especially the images of women that bombard and shape all of us at every turn.
Although not one of her images qualifies, exactly, as a self-portrait, the Modern's show is above all an inspiring portrait of the artist ceaselessly at work, striving never to repeat herself, always trying to go deeper and further in one direction or another. Her self - remorseless, generous, imaginative and shrewd - is everywhere. (Roberta Smith New York Times 20120223)

Coming into the art world of the seventies, she found more bad fathers: In MoMA's excellent catalogue she speaks to John Waters about being "disgusted with the art world the boy artists, the boy painters." (Jerry Saltz New York Magazine 20120212)

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 264 pages
  • Publisher: The Museum of Modern Art, New York; First Edition edition (February 29, 2012)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0870708120
  • ISBN-13: 978-0870708121
  • Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 1.2 x 12.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 4.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #209,439 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Narcissism as Art: The Genius of Cindy Sherman May 19, 2012
Format:Hardcover
Cindy Sherman may alter her content for periods of time as she continues to be hailed as one of the most important photographic artists of the day but the subject matter is consistent: Cindy Sherman, the model. Does the work ever become repetitive? No. It simply gets more interesting as time moves along. This magnificent monograph covers the full career o f this fascinating artist's output and if ever there were a single volume to collect for those who admire her work, this is the book to purchase.

There are fine written contributions by Eva Respini and Johanna Burton and, very much in the style of Sherman's work, there is a fascinating and humorous interview/conversation between Cindy Sherman and the outrageous film maker John Waters that tackles the subject of creativity.

But by far the bulk of this fine book is the reproduction of works by Sherman, including Untitled Film Stills, her original works from 1977 to 1980, the Centerfolds from 1981, almost all of her history portraits which occupied her from 1989 to 1990, the series of head shots from 2000 to 2002, and her most recent work examining the subject of aging in this youth centric time in which we live.

The historic figures are both challenging and humorous as Sherman poses as queens, famous women, and historic concepts. The degree of costume manipulation and extreme makeup, costumes, and props she devises are features of her work that are extraordinary in and of themselves. But then the context in which she places herself in these historic images is so correct that the images challenge the mind. She is particularly spectacular when she arranges multiple figures (each figure being herself) in tableaux - feats that nearly defy belief.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Crazy woman crazy cool May 21, 2013
By K C
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Never liked her when I was in art school. Thought she was pretentious as hell. But after seeing her special exhibition in Dallas a few months ago, I was totally impressed. You have to see her work as a whole to appreciate how ingenious she is. Granted I still think she is a narcissistic and pretentious snob, there is something about the "Where's Waldo" like quality in her work that keeps you looking for more.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Good representation, but not for me March 20, 2013
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
First of all, I am definitely a dilettante when it comes to art. I do know what I like, and I was intrigued when I saw some of Sherman's self-portraits online (I have never attended her exhibition). I decided to order this book to find out more about the artist. This book is a fair representation of her work, but some of the images (penis with a ring on it fused to a vagina with a tampon string sticking out, a picture of vomit) I have found offensive and not at all pleasant to look at. I am sure there's a conceptual explanation there, to be honest, I have not bothered to read the accompanying text. If you like Sherman's work, this is a good book to have, unfortunately, it is not for me and my coffee table.
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5.0 out of 5 stars Always up there May 7, 2013
Format:Hardcover
As a huge fan of Cindy Sherman's work, I'm glad to see this compilation with some pictures that I had never seen before, and relatively affordable. She is really one of the most influential forces in recent photography and keeps reinventing herself in amusing and powerful ways. I would like to see some of the photos in here a lot larger than they were reproduced, although this doesn't reduce their overall impact and appeal. Definitely worth the buy.
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4 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars CINDY SHERMAN - sweetheart May 1, 2012
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
WOW! Just got back from an NYC trip and took the opportunity to see the MOMA show featuring Cindy. What a doll she was in the 70s.

GREAT BOOK, GREAT PRICE! Thanks..................
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