Cindy Sherman (b. 1954)
Untitled #169
signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman 2/6 1987' (on a label affixed to the reverse)
chromogenic colour print
49 x 69in. (124.5 x 175.3cm.)
Executed in 1987, this work is number two from an edition of six

Provenance:
Metro Pictures, New York.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Exhibited:
P. Schjeldahl, Cindy Sherman, Munich 1987, no. 120 (illustrated in colour, unpaged).

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Specialist Notes:

Executed in 1987, Untitled #169 forms part of Cindy Sherman’s Disaster series (1986-1989). Conceived in the aftermath of her wildly successful Untitled Film Stills, the Disaster series and others pursued by the artist through the 1990s marked a turning point in her practice. It was in these series that Sherman went on to explore the ugly, macabre and grotesque in her art, themes that coalesced to bring about the ultimate dissolution of the body in her imagery. Speaking of this evolution in her practice, Sherman explained, ‘I was nervous that I was too dependent on myself, so I wanted to see if I could tell a story or make an image without including myself’ (C. Sherman, quoted in ‘Cindy Sherman and John Waters: A Conversation’, in Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012, p. 75).

In Untitled #169, Sherman presents the aftermath of some calamitous event, with broken wine glasses and a motionless figure in the foreground. The artic scene does nothing more to elucidate what has happened there. And yet, the image also stands as an examination of colour, light and texture, as the glossy silver strands of hair counter the flaky artificial snow and granite-like stones. The depth of colour captured in the spilled red wine is punctuated by the red fish at the top of the composition.

As the present work exemplifies, Sherman’s imagery from this period is defined as visually rich and painterly in texture and colour. She said of these pictures that she ‘wanted something visually offensive but seductive, beautiful, and textural as well, to suck you in and then repulse you’ (C. Sherman, quoted in C. Tomkins, ‘Her Secret Identities’, in New Yorker, 15 May 2000, p. 81). Having explored the cinematic in her Film Stills, in the Disasters, as in other series from this period such as the Fairy Tales, Sherman utilizes theatrical devices, themes and motifs in the conception of her imagery. Revelling in their own theatricality and artificiality, her photographs stand as carefully arranged tableaus that are surrogates for larger narratives. Indeed the suspense and suggestion of violence and danger lurking in the film stills is still very much present, if not amplified and articulated to a much fuller extent in her works from this period.

Untitled #169 is one of our sale specialist, Amanda Lo Iacono’s, sale highlights. Read more about this and her other picks here.

Please note this lot is the property of a consumer. See H1 of the Conditions of Sale.