Beschreibung:

Cindy Sherman Untitled #422 2004 colour coupler print 125 x 140 cm (49 1/4 x 55 1/8 in) Signed, numbered and dated ‘Cindy Sherman, 2004, 5/6’ on a label affixed to the reverse of the backing board. This work is number 5 from an edition of 6.
Provenance Metro Pictures, New York Phillips de Pury, London, Contemporary Art, Part I, 12 May 2011, lot 43 Private Collection Exhibited New York, Metro Pictures, Cindy Sherman 8 May–27 June2004 (another example exhibited) Hannover, Kestnergesellschaft, Cindy Sherman 23 September–7 November2004 (another example exhibited) Literature M. Schlüter, Cindy Sherman Clowns, Hannover, 2004, n.p. (another example illustrated in colour) R. Durand, Cindy Sherman Paris, Jau de Paume, 2006, p. 269 (illustrated in colour) Catalogue Essay “… So many things suddenly made sense for the clowns, for the whole idea. I’d been going through a struggle, particularly after 9/11; I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say. I still wanted the work to be the same kind of mixture – intense, with a nasty side or an ugly side, but also with a real pathos about the characters – and [clowns] have an underlying sense of sadness while they’re trying to cheer people up. Clowns are sad, but they’re also psychotically, hysterically happy.” (Cindy Sherman in an interview by Betsy Berne, Studio: Cindy Sherman Tate Magazine, issue 5, May–June 2003) By making herself, in many guises, the subject of her own photographs, Cindy Sherman challenges concepts of identity and representation. The artist places herself in the made-up and clichéd realities based on all imaginable female stereotypes – housewife, career girl, bombshell, femme fatale, and so on. Sherman, who started dressing up in her childhood in an effort to look different, uses makeup, wigs, costumes, artificial body parts to carefully disguise herself in the image in the focus of her photographs. These are not self-portraits but rather a series of studies of the artificial nature of our society. Sherman is credited with challenging the canons of portraiture and with making photography a medium in its own right in contemporary art. She began her career with Untitled Film Stills (1977–80), the series of black and white images that resemble movie stills, but in reality were set up for the purpose of the photograph. She continued with portraiture that focused on the drama and banality of life in the series that followed – Fairy Tales (1985), Disasters (1986–89), Centerfolds (1981), History Portraits (1988–90) and Hollywood/Hampton Portraits (2000–02). Sherman goes even further in her practice of impersonation in the series of Clowns, the ultimate masquerade figures, produced in 2003–04, of which the present lot is a beautiful example. In this series, Sherman explores the idea of the whole world being, in her own words, “a world of clowns, as if it is another dimension”. Shot on slide film, Untitled #422, from 2004, is a vibrant, staged photograph of a clown set against a digitally manipulated background, adding a surreal touch to the work. The clown, although painted with smiling makeup on her face, is a picture of sadness and contemplation. Here, Sherman plays with a traditional opposition in the image of the clown – happiness and melancholy – and creates a discourse between the exterior and interior, our perception and reality. According to Sherman, “For me, a great portrait is something that combines the familiar with the unfamiliar – something seductive but also repulsive. I want to go ‘Ew’, but then can’t stop looking. So there’s a push-pull thing to it. I also see the humorous aspect, not just the horrible. It’s exciting in its gruesomeness” (Linda Yablonsky, Cindy Sherman Wall Street Journal, 23 February 2012). This tension is evident in the present lot; it engages the viewer and makes them wonder what the encounter with this figure might be like. The clown, the key figure of the Commedia dell’Arte, has been a recurring subject in the practice of contemporary artists, led by Bruce Nauman Ugo Rondinone Roni Horn and Paul McCarthy who all use clowns to explore identity and the complex impulses of human nature that are more easily conveyed once one’s persona is covered by a mask. According to Eva Resp