Auction details
11:00 AM PT - Feb 16th, 2012
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Untitled #410, 2003. Colour photograph. 141 x 101.5 cm (55 1/2 x 39 7/8 in). Signed, dated ‘Cindy Sherman 2003’ and numbered of 6 on the reverse of the backing. This work is from an edition of 6.
Ο ◊ ‡ PROVENANCE Metro Pictures, New York EXHIBITIED London, Serpentine Gallery, Cindy Sherman, 3 June – 25 August 2003 (another example exhibited) New York, Metro Pictures, Cindy Sherman, 8 May – 26 June 2004 “I didn’t want to make ‘high’ art, I had no interest in using paint, I wanted to find something that anyone could relate to without knowing about contemporary art.” CINDY SHERMAN Untitled #410 belongs to Cindy Sherman’s Clowns series executed between 2003 and 2004. It is one of the first five images from the series, and an edition of this particular work is housed in the permanent collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art. “The appearance of the clown in Cindy Sherman’s work was, without doubt, inevitable. Sherman’s taste for masquerades and dressing up, the mixture of the grotesque and serious, her hysterical chameleonism, all combine to conjure the essence of clowns and clowning, hinted at in early works … The clown is the logical extension of many fundamental themes in Cindy Sherman’s work. But Sherman is now no longer interested in exploring the infinite potential of dressing up, disguise, and impersonation, the virtuoso game of borrowed identities that has unfolded so far. On the contrary, the clown series adopts a single, universally familiar type whose attributes remain more or less constant. Sherman’s purpose is to suggest the range of physiognomies and facial expressions of emotion that may be glimpsed via the stereotype itself.” (Cindy Sherman, exh. cat., Paris, Jeu de Paume, 2006, p. 253) Untitled #410 shows the artist dressed in a flamboyant clown costume with disorderly makeup – and of course, the disturbing quality of clown’s maquillage is widely acknowledged. The permanent forced smile inescapably hints at an anxious or turbulent character beneath the seemingly joyful mask, while the figure floats in a digitally-produced sea of psychedelic colour and pattern. It produces a hypnotic hold on the viewer: one is cautious to gaze into the picture for too long for fear of enchantment. Sherman’s clown is a far cry from Picasso’s harlequin, but Untitled #410 goes even further beyond the unsettling boundaries governing a clown’s traditional costume and makeup, with elongated features of freakish proportions, an uncharacteristic cowboy hat, and wild unkempt red hair. Like Rondinone’s worn-out clown, all this leads to revealing the underlying pathos of the clown – not the hysterically happy children’s entertainer of convention, but a figure as depicted in horror films. ImagesClick on thumbnails to see larger images:
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