Cindy Sherman, a traveling exhibition of one of the most important contemporary artists, is being presented in New York City, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Dallas.
Cindy Sherman has built an international reputation, photographing herself in a variety of semblances and personas. Her subject matter is topical, humorous, and confrontational. She holds a mirror up to contemporary society, referencing visual culture: movies, magazines, television, the internet, and art history.
The exhibition features 150 photographs from public and private collections, some over-sized and site-specific and others never-before-seen. One of the highlights is her black-and-white body of work, Untitled Film Stills, where the artist became the stereotypical female featured in 1950s and 1960s Hollywood and film noir. An illustrated catalog accompanies the show along with a series of films that were of great artistic influence to Sherman.
“While photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent,” Chuck Close says in the clip above for the “Artists & Alchemists” documentary feature, “I think it is the hardest medium in which to have a distinctive personal vision.”
Known for his unparalleled attention to detail in hyperrealist portraiture, Close explains in conveying that vision his predilection for using immensely revealing daguerreotypes, plates that capture just about the widest possible range of highlights and shadows with the use of strobe lights that capture quite literately the power of the sun.
This clip offers a bit of background on the labor intensive process that went into his series A Couple of Ways of Doing Something, on view at the Wichita Art Museum through this Sunday, April 15, 2012. The series features fifteen massive prints of the artist’s world-renowned friends (Cindy Sherman, Philip Glass, James Turrell, Laurie Anderson, to name a few) presented with microscopic intimacy, each alongside a poem by Bob Holman. The work was inspired in part by a collaborative series of lithographs done by poet/curator Frank O’Hara and artist Larry Rivers in the late 50s, as Close explains briefly in the accompanying interview from the 2006 Aperture monograph A Couple of Ways of Doing Something with Lyle Rexer, author of the Edge of Vision.
As photography moves forward becoming more widespread and accessible, in an era when the premium put on absolute originality is largely in question, sometimes reaching back for precedent can be as fruitful as rediscovering archaic technology. Or as Close puts it, “In 1840 virtually everything I love about photography was already there.”
Aperture aggregates the best posts from this past week in the photography blogosphere.
LensBlog explores why Rodrigo Abd‘s photograph of a young Syrian boy expressing grief over the death of his father landed on the front page of three of the most prominent national papers in the United States.
Group exhibition Embarassment of Riches explores the different applications of wealth in recent day and age around the world through photography and other media works. While the monetary status of some countries today flourishes steadily, many others remain in a state of flux – surging and quickly falling. Contemporary artists, including Jacqueline Hassink, Martin Parr, Cindy Sherman, and Sze Tsung Leong, give visual insight to a culture within a culture: an elite group scattered globally that can buy endlessly and not think twice, wine and dine with the utmost sophistication, and transform the appearance of themselves and the cities they live in. Abundant and sometimes excessive in prosperity at first, these lifestyles can be fleeting and their effects tumultuous. Embarrassment of Riches is a commentary on society and its rich inhabitants from the past decade.
Left cover image: Cindy Sherman. Right cover image: Clare Strand.
Celebrating issue 200 with two dynamic covers, one from acclaimed photographer Cindy Sherman and the other from emerging artist Clare Strand!
Issue 200 includes:
Commemorating the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, photographers and long-time New Orleans residents Keith Calhoun and Chandra McCormick reveal the remnants of the tragic loss as well as the current uplifting communal spirit in the city.
An intricate link between Manhattan’s unseen past and present is depicted in photographs by Barney Kulok and further discussed by poet Max Blagg.
Recently discovered film stills from Salvador Toscano’s 1950 documentary about the 1920–17 Mexican Revolution, reveal new insight into the everyday citizen’s experience during the greatest social and political upheaval of the time.
Lucas Foglia sheds light on the unique lifestyles of Americans who detach themselves from mainstream society.
Martin Parr introduces Óscar Fernando Gómez‘s photographs of Monterrey, Mexico, framed and taken through the window of his taxi cab.
David Campany investigates emerging artist Clare Strand’s cryptic black & white images of the unknown.
E.L. Doctorow talks to Eric Fischl about Fischl’s traveling exhibition of post 9/11 work by some of the most well-known artists working today, including Chuck Close, Nan Goldin, Catherine Opie, and many more. A portfolio of the exhibition images is available for purchase here.
Haunted, an exhibition currently on view at the Guggenheim examines contemporary photographic imagery that deals with themes of memory, trauma and a return to the past. Included in the exhibit’s diverse roster of artists are Aperture published and master photographer Sally Mann, Spencer Finch, who recently spoke at the Aperture bookstore, An my Le, whose limited edition print Night Operations is available through Aperture, Cindy Sherman, featured in Aperture magazine issue 169, Sophie Calle, featured in Aperture magazine issue 142 and issue 191, Miranda Lichtenstein and more.
Also included in the exhibition is work by artist Waled Beshty, who was recently featured in Aperture’s Words Without Pictures and The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Astraction in Photography. Beshty will give a talk about themes in his work and current issues in the art world at the Guggenhiem next Wednesday, May 26th.
Opening this weekend at the Austin Museum of Art, A Couple Ways of Doing Something features Chuck Close’s intimate portraits of leading contemporary artists, paired with Bob Holman’s witty and beautifully typeset poems. The daguerreotypes offer an extremely revealing study of the subjects, extending the hyperrealist tradition of portraiture for which Close is renowned. In keeping with the exhibition title, Chuck Close has included examples of his other works taken from each daguerreotype in a variety of media, including photogravures, digital pigment prints, and large-scale tapestries. In an additional departure for Close, many of the portraits were produced in tandem with praise poems by Bob Holman, founder of the Bowery Poetry Club. Together, they form composite portraits of their subjects—an influential and highly creative circle of friends and colleagues—from Andres Serrano to Cindy Sherman. An opening reception will be held Friday, August 21 from 6:00 to 9:00, open only to museum members. The museum will screen a film about the artist and his peers in early September as well as a Slide Lecture by Art Historian Richard Shiff early November. Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something Saturday, August 22—Sunday, November 8, 2009 Austin Museum of Art
823 Congress Avenue
Austin, Texas
(512) 495-9224
Film: Portrait of Close’s Creative Circle Thursday, September 10, 2009 7:00 pm
In her film Chuck Close (2007), director Marion Cajori examines the appeal of the human face by interviewing the artist and his circle of creative friends, including Philip Glass, Robert Rauschenberg, and Kiki Smith. Film introduction by Austin photographer George Krause.
Slide Lecture: Realism of Low Resolution Thursday, November 5, 2009 7:00 pm
Art Historian Richard Shiff will put the portraits of Chuck Close in context with the slide lecture Realism of Low Resolution: Chuck Close (and Others).
The International Center of Photography unveils Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, showcasing over 100 recent works by 34 artists from 18 countries — all on the general subject of “fashion” (and costume, clothing, disguise, gender and culture) as a part of ICP year-long investigation of fashion photography. The curatorial team includes Vince Aletti, Kristen Lubben, Christopher Phillips, Carol Squiers and curatorial assistant Judy Ditner.
Participating artists: Yto Barrada, Valérie Belin, Thorsten Brinkmann, Cao Fei, Olga Chernysheva, Nathalie Djurberg, Stan Douglas, Kota Ezawa, Jacqueline Hassink, Hu Yang, Miyako Ishiuchi, Kimsooja, Silvia Kolbowski, Jeremy Kost, Barbara Kruger, Richard Learoyd, Kalup Linzy, Tanya Marcuse, Anne Morgenstern, Wangechi Mutu, Grace Ndiritu, Alice O’Malley, David Rosetzky, Martha Rosler, Julika Rudelius, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Lorna Simpson, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Milagros de la Torre, Janaina Tschäpe, Pinar Yolaçan and Zhou Tao.
Exhibition on view:
Friday, October 2, 2009–Sunday, January 17, 2010
Now on view Cheim and Read Gallery is The Female Gaze: Women Look at Women, a group exhibition of women artists depicting the female form. Featuring artists such as Berenice Abbott, Diane Arbus, Vanessa Beecroft, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Kathe Burkhart, Rineke Dijkstra, Marlene Dumas, Nan Goldin, Katy Grannan, Jenny Holzer, Sally Mann, Joan Mitchell, Alice Neel, Shirin Neshat, Cindy Sherman, Francesca Woodman and Hellen van Meene. Through a variety of mediums this exhibition seeks to present a collection of works which reclaim the traditional domination of the “male gaze” and reorient the significance of the female figure to allow for more varied interpretations.
Now on view until August is The Pictures Generation, 1974-1984. The exhibition is named after a group of artists working in New York from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, whose work and collective achievement is an important chapter in the history of contemporary art.
Coming from a generation with expanding media and consumer culture, and educated in the era of Minimalism and Conceptualism in art, the artists explore the social and psychological role of the image, and how it shapes our perceptions of ourselves and the world. The Pictures Generation 1974-1984 features the work of 30 artists and includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, video, installation, prints, and books. Among the featured artists are Aperture-published Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, and James Welling.
Cambridge England (Cocktails on carpet), 2005, © Martin Parr
Left cover image: Cindy Sherman. Right cover image: Clare Strand.
Night Operations by An my Le
And Should…, 1974 © James Welling