Exhibitions
The Women: Cindy Sherman and the roles we inhabit
Four decades of photographic work around identity, gender and the staging of female roles, at Hauser & Wirth Menorca.
Cindy Sherman arrives at Hauser & Wirth Menorca with an exhibition that brings together some of her best-known series, produced between the seventies and the 2010s. The American artist has spent decades using photography to bring to the table issues such as identity, gender and the roles that are constructed around the image. Her work, always focused on the figure itself, does not seek portraiture so much as fiction; she becomes a character, disguises herself and transforms herself.
Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, in 1954 and currently residing in New York, Cindy Sherman began experimenting with photography while at Buffalo State College, and has worked on visual representation in the media since the 1970s. Using prosthetics, makeup, theatrical effects, and digital techniques, she has built a wide repertoire of characters that challenge the viewer's gaze. Sherman's interest has never been to explain who she is, but rather to show how many different forms a woman's face can take when society writes the script.
Untitled Film Still #24, Cindy Sherman (1978)
At Hauser&Wirth, the exhibition is titled The Women, a reference to a 1936 play written by Clare Boothe Luce that focused exclusively on female characters and their social relationships. Among the pieces on display is the well-known series Untitled Film Stills (1977–1980), which marked a turning point in her career and established her as one of the leading voices of the movement known as the “Pictures Generation.” In these images, Sherman takes on the appearance of female characters who seem to have been taken from a film frame, even though neither the film nor the story exists. They are recognizable stereotypes, but devoid of context and artificial.
The exhibition also includes large-format works from later decades, where the critique of the construction of femininity remains, but takes on other forms and textures. Images of mature women in ostentatious dresses or celebrities question the contemporary obsession with image, the cult of appearance and the effects of aging.
Untitled Film Still #6, Cindy Sherman (1977). Foto: CS Studio
To complete the exhibition tour, an Education Lab has been created in collaboration with ESADIB and the Trobades & Premis Mediterranis Albert Camus, a shared workspace that aims to open up reflections on how identity is constructed and how it is conditioned by context, personal experiences or social pressures. With workshops, activities and stage actions, this laboratory aims to connect with questions that Sherman's work has raised for decades and that are still very much alive today, especially if we take into account the impact of social networks and the way they condition the image we project.
Untitled #568, Cindy Sherman (2016)
