Cindy Sherman: 2023
Cindy Sherman-The Gentlewoman, 2019 © Cindy Sherman. Photo: Inez and Vinoodh
Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ latest publication on Cindy Sherman features a new body of work by the artist and was released on June 9th, 2023, and was accompanied by the artist’s solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse from June 9th to September 16 of 2023. It coincided with two museum shows by the artist: ‘Cindy Sherman – Tapestries’ at ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Denmark, which took place from February 4th to June 5th, 2023, and ‘Cindy Sherman: Anti-Fashion’ at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, which opened on April 20th and closed on September 10th of 2023.
Book photography: Courtesy Hauser&Wirth Publishers
This publication titled, ‘Cindy Sherman: 2023,’ presents a new body of work by Cindy Sherman, which will debut at Hauser & Wirth Zurich, Limmatstrasse, this June and continues her explorations of the genre of portraiture, going back to her early work of the 1970s. Across 36 photographs, the artist collages parts of her own face to construct the identities of various sitters, using digital manipulation to accent the layered aspects and plasticity of the self. The book also includes a text by Sherman chronicling her process in the studio, offering an intimate glimpse into her thinking about the work.
Book photography: Courtesy Hauser&Wirth Publishers
Sherman’s ground-breaking photographs have interrogated themes around representation and identity in contemporary media for over four decades. Since the early 2000s, Sherman has constructed personae with digital manipulation, capturing the fractured sense of self in modern society—a concern the artist has uniquely encapsulated from the outset of her career.
In the new body of work, Sherman has removed any scenic backdrops or mise-en-scène—the focus of this series is the face. She combines a digital collaging technique using black and white and color photographs with other traditional modes of transformation, such as make-up, wigs and costumery, to create a series of unsettling characters who laugh, twist, squint and grimace in front of the camera. In the double role of both photographer and model, Sherman upends the usual dynamic between artist and subject. Here, the sitter does not technically exist—all portraits are comprised of composites of the artist’s face— however, they still read as classical portraiture and, despite the layers, the image still gives a true impression of the ‘sitter’. Tightly cropped, with frames full of hair, stretched-out faces or swathes of material, Sherman’s construction of her characters disrupt the voyeur-gaze and subject-object binaries that are often associated with the tradition of portraiture.
Book photography: Courtesy Hauser&Wirth Publishers
The publication, whose focus on this new body of work lends it the feeling of an artist’s book or portfolio, is produced at an intimate scale, allowing readers to engage closely with the artworks. The publication includes a text written by Sherman, styled as several diary entries candidly recounting her process in the studio as she began these works in 2010 and revisited them in 2022–23. The book’s black and white images are sumptuously printed in a tritone process, with certain works including elements printed in four-color process.
About Hauser & Wirth Publishers
Artists’ voices, exceptional art, scholarship, design and bookmaking are at the heart of Hauser & Wirth Publishers’ program, which has been helmed by Michaela Unterdörfer since 2005. Books are critical gateways to new ways of thinking and seeing; they provide vital, lasting records of artists’ works and ideas and the discourse they inspire. This is why publishing has been a cornerstone of the gallery’s activity since its founding and why Hauser & Wirth Publishers has grown to become a leading imprint for unique, object-like books that encourage an understanding and appreciation of modern and contemporary art. With the special access granted by artists to their writings and archives, Hauser & Wirth Publishers often brings new and overlooked aspects of an artist’s creative practice into focus. Our backlist offers a robust program that comprises artists’ books, artists’ writings, biographies, monographs, surveys, exhibition catalogs and collectors’ perspectives.
Hauser & Wirth’s publishing activity extends back to 1992, from where it steadily flourished through partnerships with reputable imprints such as Hatje Cantz, JRP|Ringier, Snoeck, Steidl, Thames & Hudson and Yale University Press, before publishing independently under its own imprint. Based in Zurich and New York City, Hauser & Wirth Publishers commissions titles that we believe are keystone resources and references related to the artists represented by the gallery and beyond. Our titles are distributed worldwide via Distributed Art Publishers and Buchhandlung Walther König.
Cindy Sherman: 2023
Release date: 9 June 2023
Text by Cindy Sherman
Book design by Katy Nelson
English, Hardcover
84 pages, 36 illustrations, 197 x 248 mm
ISBN 978-3-906915-82-1
£38 / $45 / €42 / CHF 42 / HKD 375
For more information about this title or other publications from Hauser & Wirth Publishers, please visit their site. For more information about the exhibits at the gallery, please visit Hauser & Wirth site. Also, follow the gallery on Instagram, Facebook, X and YouTube for more updates.
