Product type:
Photography
40.64 × 23.81 cm
Digital C-print on Fujicolor Crystal Archive Type DPII paper
Edition of 629 copies
The edition is signed on the reverse directly by the artist. One signature per group of three (triptych)
Framing: Museum quality
With Untitled, Cindy Sherman has opened a previously hidden chapter of her archive. The three photographs were taken around the year 2000 in connection with her famous Head Shots series—yet they remained unpublished for more than two decades.
As is so often the case in Sherman's work, the staging of identity is at the heart of this piece. The artist transforms herself into a character reminiscent of an aspiring actress: ambitious, vulnerable, and caught somewhere between self-image, expectation, and projection.
It is precisely this ambivalence that makes the work so powerful. At first glance, the three images appear almost classically beautiful. Yet beneath this lies the very uncertainty with which Sherman has been playing for decades: Who is this person? Which role are we seeing? And how much of it is real?
The photographs were taken on experimental, expired Polaroid slide film. The presentation as a three-part sequence is reminiscent of an old film strip and reinforces the association with Hollywood, casting, fame, and the many careers that never progressed beyond a portrait photo.
Sherman herself had originally held the images back because they seemed too "pretty" to her compared to other works in the series. It is precisely this fact that makes their later release particularly interesting: more than 25 years later, she showcased three works from this early shoot for the first time, providing insight into a part of her body of work that had previously existed exclusively in her personal archive.
The limited edition was released to benefit the Museum of Cycladic Art.
