The Distortion of Cindy Sherman - Controversial Art up for Auction

On 6 March, Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers has a photographic work of art up for auction by none other than the American superstar Cindy Sherman. The disquieting work, with the anonymous title "Untitled #312", belongs to Sherman's most controversial and is among the few images that Sherman herself does not appear in.

The work "Untitled # 312" is from the early 1990s, where Sherman created a series of nightmarish works in a response to her incredible success on the international art scene. In the work, three deformed prosthetic creatures are seen in a peculiarly classical composition in front of a draped piece of fabric. In the middle lies a blinded and "nude" female figure surrounded by two "nude" and deformed dolls – almost like a fertility goddess from hell. Or perhaps caught in a tragic constellation between a staring homunculus and a "dead" infant where the throat has received an alarming fracture?

“In a way ”Untitled #312” was a natural extension of Sherman's previous work since they arose from a dialogue with art, film and media from our everyday lives and cultural history – in this case especially the photographic surrealism of the 1930s. The work here was exhibited together with 14 other photographs, which all have clear macabre and sexual overtones, at Sherman’s gallery Metro Pictures in New York in 1995 – distorted images of the kind you don’t just shake off,” says Christine Almlund, specialist in photography.

Groundbreaking Still Photographs

Cindy Sherman (born 1954) had her major breakthrough as a young artist with the groundbreaking photographic series "Untitled Film Stills" (1976-80), and since then she has been recognized as one of the most important names within modern contemporary art. The series that made her famous consisted of nearly 70 photographs in black and white. The series had an incredible impact on the art world, partly because it was a comment on the staging of women in a cinematic universe, partly because Sherman used the photographic medium in a new way with refreshing references to both high and pop culture at a time when the norms concerning art and gender ideals were experiencing significant changes.

The Subversive Photographs

The game of staging herself in different roles has been central to most of Sherman's works since "Untitled Film Stills". Another thread is her use of key iconography of modern Western culture – from historical works of art and commercial portraits to clown figures, games with masks and grotesque, macabre and pornographic dolls. From the late 1980s and onwards, she began to make photographs, where she herself was no longer part of the image. In an interview with John Waters from 2012, Sherman states that she wanted to undermine the perception of her own art, because she felt guilty for having achieved artistic recognition at such an early age. She also wanted to test her own boundaries: "I wanted to see if I could tell a story or make an image without including myself".

Horror and Pornography

Inspired by horror films she explored compositions with what most of all resembles the elements of a gore movie – vomit, excrements and blood mixed in unappetizing, repulsive, yet also highly alluring, well-composed hodgepodge. In the early 1990s, she expanded the horror repertoire with her so-called Sex Pictures: Close-ups of genitals made by medical prostheses, masks and mannequins and put together in all kinds of imaginative and disturbing ways. The photos made the American art critic Jerry Saltz describe them as anti-pornographic pornography and the least sexy sex photos ever.

The Distortions of Surrealism

After the Sex Pictures series, she continued her deliberately subversive photographic work. In 1995, she exhibited 15 new works, among them "Untitled # 312". In the press release, which was issued in connection with the exhibition, the subversive character of the works and a new-found interest in the surreal photography was mentioned as a driving force in her work. The reference to the French artist Hans Bellmer's famous "Poupée" series from the 1930s is also evident in "Untitled # 312". It is – much like the rest of Sherman's work – full of ambiguity. Sherman plays with the surreal universe and the fascination of the dark corners of sub-consciousness in her attempt to take apart the concept of the “beautiful” photograph.

Where Frenchman Bellmer softens his macabre doll images with enticing erotic curves, Sherman's surrealism is rawer. In fact, it is a well-timed punch in the face of the Surrealists’ fetishism. In her work, the erotic, blunted and callous female body is not glorified. The bodies are rather a display of the distortion of the female body and the callousness, which the dark surrealism idolised. In these #metoo-times, the work is as current and contentious as when the work was originally made more than 20 years ago.

Preview and auction

At the auction, you can also experience a series of intense works by the American artist Marilyn Minter and the Swiss multitalented artist and humourist Olaf Breuning whose vital photographs and sculptures are worth experiencing. All six photographs up for auction can be experienced at Bruun Rasmussen's preview in Bredgade 33, Copenhagen, from 22 to 26 February and will come under the hammer on 6 and 7 March at the same place.

View all the photos up for auction here

Read more about the auction here

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