TAKE A BREAK – CINDY SHERMAN

The Convulsive Beauty at James Hyman Gallery consists around 20 vintage small prints in a small room. By hanging these photos together under the title of the surrealist photography it does give every photo more surreal feel, which is special and excellent. I can see all the photos on wall and they are nice and intriguing images, but the space does not give me literally anything extra comparing with browsing books at home, though they are vintage small prints adding the time element into the theme and enhancing it. I went to see Cindy Sherman new series – Untitled (2008) at Spruth Magers Berlin London. On the contrary, the images are blown out almost double the life size and filled all the walls as wallpaper. The affect standing inside the gallery looking up at the image is overwhelming. To quote a paragraph from the catalogue of the show:

The Untitled (2008) series was characterised by a group of almost life-size ageing American socialites. In the photographic murals, the figures are enlarged even further to epic proportions, the grand scale serving to intensify the tension, vulnerability and uncertainty exuded by Sherman’s theatrical types. The athleticism of one figure is subtly undermined by the detail of Sherman’s performance; the pulled up sport socks & trainers, cropped blonde wig and colourful batons do not reveal the same pride or superiority implied by the character’s confident stance and haunting glare. The same black trainers reappear on another of the characters, implying that they are all mysteriously linked together. Indeed Sherman’s abandonment of make-up in favour of minor digital adjustments unintentionally results in the disquieting affect that each figure stems from the same ‘family’. Sherman’s decision to eschew make-up as the most effective means of accentuating or de-emphasising the features brings us back to her earlier works such as the Rear Screen Projections series from the early 1980s, whereby she used subtle distortions in lighting, camera angle and costume to achieve a contrasting look.

I quite like the absence and presence in Sherman’s previous works especially those film stills. I like Sherman’s approach in general, but I need bit more time to digest this new series. I found sometimes as time goes by something from some work viewed previously develops organically inside me.