Views & Reviews A Play of Selves Cindy Sherman How We See: Photobooks by Women 10x10 Photobooks Photography

Cindy Sherman: A Play of Selves door Cindy Sherman (Fotograaf) Hatje Cantz (2007), Edition: 1st, 128 pages

The New York Public Library's Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs is pleased to host the How We See Reading Room, a public space to browse and view the 100 21st-century photobooks selected for the How We See: Photobooks by Women book and tour. The Reading Room will be open October 25-27, 2018, 10 AM-5:45 PM at The Margaret Liebman Berger Forum (Room 227) in the NYPL Stephen A. Schwarzman Building at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue.

As part of the program, please join us October 25 at 6:30 PM for a conversation with two of the ten experts who selected the photos for the series, and one of the editors from the 10X10 team, as they examine how important the photobook is as a medium for women today, 175 years after the publication of the first photographically produced book. Learn more or register for the event.

More on How We See: Photobooks by Women
How We See: Photobooks by Women, the latest project in the nonprofit 10x10 Photobooks’ ongoing series of reading rooms, presents a global range of 100 21st-century photobooks by female photographers.

With historical records establishing 19th-century British photographer Anna Atkins’s British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843-1853) as the first photobook, it is not surprising that women have consistently contributed to the rich history of photobook making. However, despite their significant presence within the photobook community, the women have a relatively small place among top prizes, within prominent photobook publisher inventories, and among widely promoted books compared to their male peers.

10x10 Photobooks has organized How We See—a hands-on reading room, 'books on books' publication and series of public events—to explore the distinctive qualities of photobooks created by women photographers. The goal is not to isolate these books, but rather to closely examine their content, design, and intellectual attributes as a means of understanding and re-establishing their place within the larger photobook practice.

See also 

Dutch Female Photopgraphers How We See: Photobooks by Women 10x10 Photobooks Photography

Cindy Sherman: A Play of Selves
Cindy Sherman

A Play of Selves

May 23 – June 15, 2007

Opening: Wednesday, May 23, 6-8pm

Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers

7A Grafton Street

London W1S 4EJ

Tel. + 44.20.74081613

Fax + 44.20.74994531

http://www.spruethmagers.com

london@spruethmagers.com

Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are delighted to exhibit ‘A Play of Selves,’ Cindy Sherman’s seminal work from 1975 at their Grafton Street gallery in London.

In the introduction to the recently published catalogue for ‘A Play of Selves’ (Hatje Cantz, 2007), Sherman states: “This is the only work I’ve ever done that was consciously autobiographical.”

American photographer and film-maker Cindy Sherman, born 1954 in New Jersey is known for her conceptual self-portraits in which she fully transforms herself into different personas with the use of make-up, costumes, play acting and even prosthesis. Sherman’s work questions visual representation by addressing the false naturalness of photography, in particular the images of women which are promoted by mass culture such as movies, television and magazines as reality. Some of her most important series of works include “Untitled Film Stills” (1977- 1980), “Centerfolds” (1982), “Disasters” (1986- 1989), “History Portraits/Old Masters” (1988- 1990) “Sex Pictures” (1992), and “Clowns” (2003- 2004).

‘A Play of Selves’ comprises 72 photographic assemblages which Cindy Sherman cut out of black and white prints in 1975 during her last college year in Buffalo, New York, and marks one of the first uses of herself as a subject in staged photographs. Having originally used the cut-out figures for an animated film (‘Doll Clothes,’ 1976) she soon realized that the figures could interact with each other. A film script developed, the story of a young woman overwhelmed by various alter-egos working at odds with her and her final conquering of self-doubt, played out in four acts and a finale with 16 separate characters. The scenes incorporate the allegoric figures ‘Madness,’ ‘Vanity,’ ‘Agony’ and ‘Desire’ that evoke the conflicting aspects of the female protagonist, which appears in different situations as ‘Broken Woman,’ ‘The Actual Main Character’ and ‘The Character as Others see Her.’ Only at the end does ‘Broken Women’ become the ‘Actual Main Character.’

Cindy Sherman lives and works in New York City. Since the 1980′s, her work has been collected by major private and institutional collections worldwide. Most recently, a large-scale retrospective organized by the Jeu de Paume, Paris travelled to Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria and is currently on view at the Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark until May 20, concluding at Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, Germany (15 June – 17 September 2007).

‘A Play of Selves’ will be on view at Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers, 7A Grafton Street, from May 23, 2007 through June 15, 2007. Opening Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am – 6 pm and by appointment.