Cindy Sherman

Untitled
2008

A portrait of a woman with pearl earrings and necklace, looking over her shoulder with a staircase and trees in the background.

The woman pictured here is Cindy Sherman, but as is always the case with the artist’s photographs of herself, Untitled is not a self-portrait. Instead, Sherman has used clothing and cosmetics to remodel herself as a society grande dame, one whose world-weary gaze, pasty makeup, and imperious yet hesitant pose suggest that she knows her best days are behind her. This work belongs to one of the artist’s most recent series of self-transformations: a group of large-scale photographs in which she adopts the guises of various aging socialites, exploring our societal preoccupations with youth, beauty, and glamour. Sherman’s photographs are remarkable for their ability to conjure, via judicious cues of dress, makeup, and gesture, a staggering range of recognizable social types. Whether they are fantastical creatures or ordinary people, her imaginary characters often provoke responses that are the antithesis of artifice: a sense of familiarity, and often empathy.

Not on view

Date
2008

Classification
Photographs

Medium
Chromogenic print

Dimensions
Sheet (Sight): 63 3/4 × 57 1/4in. (161.9 × 145.4 cm) Overall: 70 1/16 × 63 3/8 × 3 7/8in. (178 × 161 × 9.8 cm) Image (Sight): 63 3/4 × 57 1/4in. (161.9 × 145.4 cm)

Accession number
2009.46a-b

Edition
5/6

Credit line
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; purchase, with funds from the Painting and Sculpture Committee and the Photography Committee

Rights and reproductions
©️ Cindy Sherman, courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York

API
artworks/34993

Audio

Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2008

In Human Interest

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Cindy Sherman, Untitled, 2008

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Narrator: A woman glances over her shoulder, framed by signs of luxury: elaborate jewelry, a hint of a ball gown, and a palatial formal garden. Her gaze is rather haughty, but also seems to hint at something else—perhaps dissatisfaction or bitterness. At the very least, her face betrays a struggle with her advancing age. Her mouth is pinched and wrinkled, while her forehead seems almost too smooth, and her hair unnaturally dark.
This photograph comes from a series of society portraits by Cindy Sherman. To make these images, Sherman transformed her own appearance using wigs, thick pancake makeup, and costumes. She photographed herself against a green screen, and then Photoshopped her images into opulent backgrounds. The resulting characters seem artificial, and at odds with their surroundings.
Sherman made her society portraits in 2008, when the real estate bubble had hit its peak and the economy was on the verge of collapse. The works suggest an age of excess, a status-obsessed society. This image seems, in part, to critique that society—even to mock its members, cruelly exposing their flaws. At the same time, though, there is something tragic about the work, as if the woman were caught in a trap that is largely self-imposed.