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National Portrait Gallery unveils Cindy Sherman's first Major UK retrospective

(People's Daily Online)    15:50, July 01, 2019

National Portrait Gallery unveils Cindy Sherman's first Major UK retrospective (Photo by Tianxing Bai)

Cindy Sherman's groundbreaking series, Untitled Film Stills, 1977-80, has gone on public display for the first time in the UK in a major new retrospective of the artist's work at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Opening on June 27, Cindy Sherman explores the development of the artist's work from the mid-1970s to the present day. The exhibition features over 190 works from international public and private collections, as well as a recreation of Sherman's studio in New York, providing an unprecedented insight into the artist's working processes.

Widely regarded as one of the world's leading contemporary artists, Cindy Sherman first gained widespread critical recognition for Untitled Film Stills, the series that she commenced shortly after moving to New York in 1977. Comprising of 70 images, the work was the artist's first major artistic statement and defined her approach. With Sherman herself as the model, wearing a range of costumes and hairstyles, her black and white images captured the look of Hollywood in the 1950s and 60s, film noir, B movies and European art-house films. Building on that layer of artifice, the fictional situations she created were photographed in a way that recalls the conventions of yesterday's cinema. As a result, each photograph depicts its subject, namely the artist, refracted through a layer of artifice - a veneer of representation.

National Portrait Gallery unveils Cindy Sherman's first Major UK retrospective (Photo by Tianxing Bai)

Cindy Sherman focuses on the artist's manipulation of her appearance and deployment of material derived from a range of cultural sources to create imaginary portraits that explore the tension between façade and identity. Sherman is famous for her use of make-up, costumes, props and prosthetics to create complex and ambiguous images. Taking a quotation from Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 film, Rear Window, 'Tell me everything you saw and what you think it means' as its central theme, the exhibition will examine in detail Sherman's rich and varied visual language - which draws on cinema, television, advertising and fashion.

National Portrait Gallery unveils Cindy Sherman's first Major UK retrospective (Photo by Tianxing Bai)

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, London, said, 'We are delighted to be opening this major new retrospective, spanning over 40 years of work by one of the most influential and important artists of our time, whose photographs now appear more relevant and prescient than ever in an era of social media and selfies. The exhibition is an exciting proposition for the National Portrait Gallery, placing key works from Sherman's most important series within the context of portraiture to explore the often complex and ambiguous relationship between appearance and reality, challenging our notion of what a portrait can be." (Tianxing Bai) 

National Portrait Gallery unveils Cindy Sherman's first Major UK retrospective (Photo by Tianxing Bai)

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