Society Portrait: Cindy Sherman
Like a fleet on the ocean, the bold glass construction with its twelve sails, covering an area of 13,500 square meters, rises up to the sky: on the edge of the Jardin d’Acclimatation, architect Frank Gehry has created a monument of epic proportions with the Le Vaisseau de Verre, or glass ship, not only for the Arnault family and the “Fondation Louis Vuitton”, but also for art. The aim: Creating “a magnificent vessel that symbolizes the cultural vocation of France”. The foundation, created on the initiative of Bernard Arnault, is no less important in its further development. After all, the 7,000 square meters of floor space (including 3,850 square meters of museum space, which houses eleven galleries) are also intended to be filled in a meaningful way, and so, in addition to the permanent exhibitions with pieces by Warhol, Koons, or Richter, the quite generously dimensioned space is also dedicated to special shows. The crowning highlight of this concept is the retrospective of Cindy Sherman - the queen of self-dramatization, who masters the game of stereotypes and their alienation like no other.
Shock moments
But what is Cindy Sherman's work famous for? To call her a photographer would not do justice to her work. Although the artist, who grew up in New York, made her first experiences with the camera at the tender age of ten, her work goes far beyond the operation of the shutter release. In her works, Sherman is constantly on the lookout for socially relevant and at the same time thoroughly critical themes, which she explores in a complex way. Be it one of her earlier cycles, the series “History Portraits”, which can be seen as a commentary on the role of women in the history of art, or later
works, such as “Disaster”, in which shocking vanitas motifs using prostheses and food waste awaken a strange fascination in her viewers. Sher- man’s central point of departure is also the consistent questioning of human sexuality and the overwhelming flood of images from the net, which succeeds in combining criticism, shock, and aesthetics in a rare way. A new addition is also the examination of the digital world. “Through my art, I am always searching for new forms of expression. It is difficult to find inspiration after so many years. Technology offers other possibilities for producing images while allowing a wider choice,” she explains in a dialogue with Suzanne Pagé, artistic director of the “Fondation Louis Vuitton”.
A self-made woman
As different as the subjects may be, the works always have one thing in common: With one single exception, her former husband Michel Auder, Sherman is almost exclusively herself in front of the camera, thus becoming, even more, a part of the complex work. While her work, according to Pagé, avoids any kind of system, there is another connecting link, whether in historical costumes, in a suggestive pose or alienated with prostheses, Sherman’s eye color always remains the same. “It’s not a conscious choice, I just never bothered to get contact lenses, even when it became possible,” says Sherman, who has only recently moved away from it on Instagram.
Reorientation
Although the now 66-year-old can probably be described as a veteran after exhibitions in New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the National Portrait Gallery in London, the upcoming retrospective has a special status, especially in comparison to her last exhibition in Paris, as Pagé reveals: “So much has changed since then, not only in Paris and in the world, but simply in my life. I now have an apartment and friends here, so many things have come together. There are a lot of new works in the exhibition, including those related to social media, which certainly wasn’t the case at the time. Also, the Louis Vuitton Foundation is new and has become one of the best places in the world to see art.” The change that Sherman is talking about is one that the visitor is supposed to experience. For the artist, the challenge of such a retrospective is not to bore herself and the visitors, not to fall back into old routines and to create something that lingers in the memory. Here, too, she herself is at the center: “At the beginning of my career, I had curators installing my works, making decisions about the catalog, and so on. But once, I arrived the day before a vernissage, and my work was installed as if it were a kind of grand narrative. I hated the result so much that it taught me that I had to be present and participate in the hanging and organization of all the exhibitions as long as I had the energy - which wasn’t always easy. Besides, I think I’m a control freak in my work, therefore I work alone.” Control freak or not, her success proves her right, and even if she herself reacts rather cautiously and modestly to Pagé’s questions about her influence on the next generation, you can be sure that, like a museum Mecca, she has created something that leaves time, space and the spirit of the times behind and explores new shores of art.
Photos: Cindy Sherman, Todd Eberle, Getty Images/Daniel Zuchnik/WireImage
