Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), Skarstedt Gallery, Paris

Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) at Skarstedt Gallery brings together twenty-three works from the artist’s Untitled Film Stills series, in which Sherman cast herself as different characters in cinematic scenes that evoke Hollywood B-movies, film noir, and European arthouse films. A response to the mass media landscape of the American postwar decades in which Sherman came of age, Untitled Film Stills grapples with the construction and portrayal of the feminine identity in its many iterations across the cultural imaginary of the time. Imbued with a sense of theatricality and even voyeurism, Cindy Sherman’s images evoke the shapeshifting transformation of the self, playing with tropes and cliches to arrive at poignantly rendered alter egos. As both the subject and object of the photographs, Sherman challenges representations of femininity historically filtered through the lens of the male gaze. The series  was a seminal point in Sherman’s career, laying the thematic groundwork for her subsequent works.

On view until June 1st, 2024

Skarstedt Gallery

2 Avenue Matignon

75008

Paris, France

Text by Anfisa Vrubel

Images by Skarstedt Gallery