Untitled #92, (1981)
Chromogenic color print
61 x 121.9 cm / 24 x 48 inches
About the art
‘Untitled #92’ (1981) is one such example, belonging to a series of large color photographs Sherman created to mimic the horizontal format of a magazine centerfold. Fraught with anxiety, the artist’s self-styled protagonist is backed into a corner. Panic-stricken, her figure instantly recalls the same terror expressed by Tippi Hedren in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds, or Janet Leigh in Psycho. Sherman is crouched on the floor with no makeup and wet hair. Her costume, a plaid skirt and white blouse, brings to mind all the vulnerability of a school girl, whilst harsh lighting and the cinematically cropped frame deliberately masks the identity of her assailant.
Displaying ‘Untitled #92’ at Manuela New York draws on Sherman’s personal history too, and sees her return to the same district where in the late 1970s, she debuted her now iconic Untitled Film Stills at the non-profit Artists Space.
About the artist
Cindy Sherman (b.1954) is an American artist known for her role in the contemporary revival of directed, or staged photography. For over four decades, her ground-breaking photographs have interrogated themes around the construction and projection of individual identity in mass-media. Since the late 1970s, she has served as both photographer and model for a large cast of fictional personalities created through changes in costume, hair, makeup, and lighting.