Cindy Sherman


Fascinating exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery of work by Cindy Sherman.

Sherman uses herself, wigs and clothes to comment on contemporary society. I feared that as all the work was self-portraits it would feel quite self-centred but in fact using the same model, herself, anonymised the figure and made you look at the accessories and what they represented instead.

I loved the early set of pictures called “Film Stills” in which created 70 pictures resembling film adverts from the 1940s to 1960s. Each one could have been a short story! Also the history pictures done when she was living in Rome which were pastiches of historic portrait styles. It was a lovely touch to have borrowed Madam Moitessier by Ingres from the National Gallery to show with them.

The central gallery was a recreation of her studio using illusionistic photographs of the shelves covered in artefacts and wigs and the most recent works were murals which I wasn’t sure worked so well in the space.

My favourite works were the ones you saw as you entered of flappers which were in rich colours and stylish clothes. The faces when you looked at them though were older (Well I guess Sherman is aging) which gave them a nostalgic, poignant felling.

Closes 15 September 2019

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