“Cindy Sherman”

National Portrait Gallery, London, on view through September 15, 2019

What the Museum Says: “This major new retrospective will explore the development of Sherman’s work from the mid-1970s to the present day, and will feature around 150 works from international public and private collections, as well as new work never before displayed in a public gallery.

Focusing on the artist’s manipulation of her own appearance and her deployment of material derived from a range of cultural sources, including film, advertising, and fashion, the exhibition will explore the tension between façade and identity.”

Why It’s Worth a Look: How could it not be? Sherman’s work has never not felt relevant. In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, at the dawn of satellite TV, her chameleonic self-portraits brilliantly tapped into the postmodern anxiety that we’re perpetually watching and being watched. Forty-some years later, she has her finger on the pulse of another cultural anxiety: the stranglehold social media has on our minute-to-minute attention. While this isn’t Sherman’s first retrospective (though it is only such exhibition ever staged in the UK), no show has made a more concerted effort to chart the through lines of the artist’s early photos to the wacky, Instagram-ready work she makes today.

What It Looks Like:

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #122 (1983). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21 (1978). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #15 (1978). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #413 (2003). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #17 (1978). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #56 (1980). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #577 (2016/18). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #74 (1980). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #92 (1981). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #574 (2016). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #48 (1979). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #54 (1980). Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.

“Cindy Sherman” is on view at the National Portrait Gallery through September 15, 2019.