Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman | United States b.1954 | Untitled 2007–08 | Colour photograph mounted on aluminium, ed. of 6, AP 1/1 | Purchased 2011 with funds from Tim Fairfax, AM, through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation | Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | © The artist
Acquisitions of works by leading artists from each of the Gallery’s five contemporary collection areas are on display to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the Gallery of Modern Art.
Contemporary International Art Collection
Untitled 2007–08
Colour photograph mounted on aluminium, ed. of 6, AP 1/1
Untitled belongs to a series of works that developed out of a suite of fashion photographs made for the August 2007 issue of ‘Paris Vogue’. In these images Sherman modelled clothes designed by Nicolas Ghesquière for French fashion house Balenciaga, assuming the personae of characters associated with the exclusive, flamboyant and sometimes grotesque world of high fashion.
Sherman appears twice in Untitled, as a pair of Balenciaga—clad, champagne—fuelled fashionistas caught in the unforgiving light of the social photographer’s flash. Desperately seeking the viewer’s attention, the characters wear matching dresses, oversized spectacles and brunette bobs (perhaps referencing the iconic look of American ‘Vogue’ editor Anna Wintour). Only minor variations between the two subjects are visible, highlighting the contradictory nature of the fashion industry which ostensibly celebrates individual style while actually encouraging slavish conformity. With the two figures posed in front of a graffiti-covered wall, the work also satirises the fashion world’s patronising appreciation of gritty, low—rent locales.
