An exhibition, called That's Me - That's Not Me, of Cindy Sherman's first photographs is will be on view at the Centre de la Photographie in Geneva until January 13, 2013. photograph by Christian Redtenbacher
Gagosian Gallery in Paris presents a series of recent landscape format photographs by Cindy Sherman. On view until October 10, 2012, Gagosian Gallery, 4 rue de Ponthieu, Paris
Cindy Sherman's amazing retrospective is currently on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Photograph by Oliver Maxwell Kupper
Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954) is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. Throughout her career, she has presented a sustained, eloquent, and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history. Working as her own model for more than 30 years, Sherman has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. A retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, on view starting February 26, brings together more than 170 photographs and traces the artist’s career from the mid 1970s to the present.
When the first photobooths were set up in Paris in 1928, the Surrealists used them heavily and compulsively. In a few minutes, and for a small price, the machine offered them, through a portrait, an experience similar to automatic writing. Since then, generations of artists have been fascinated by the concept of the photobooth. From Andy Warhol to Arnulf Rainer, Thomas Ruff, Cindy Sherman and Gillian Wearing, many used it to play with their identity, tell stories, or simply create worlds. Behind the Curtain - the Aesthetics of the Photobooth, an exhibition created by the Musée de l’Elysée, is the first to focus on the aesthetics of the photobooth. It is divided into six major themes: the booth, the automated process, the strip, who am I ?, who are you ?, who are we ?. Provider of standardized legal portraits, it is the ideal tool for introspection and reflection on others, whether individually or in groups. By bringing together over 600 pieces made on different media (photographs, paintings, lithographs and videos) from sixty international artists, the exhibition reveals the influence of the photobooth within the artistic community, from its inception to the present day.
Francisco de Goya - Saturn Devours His Son - 1819-1923
Goya's famous image of Saturn devouring his son epitomizes the lust the cannibal has for human flesh. The painting depicts the myth of the greek god Saturn - fearing that his sons would overthrow him he would eat each one after birth. Male lions eat their cubs after birth in order to bring the females into heat. Goya's image of the savage cannibal with its wide eyes and devious abandon, satiating itself on a child is also representative of Goya's fear of madness. Saturn Devouring His Son was part of a series called the Black Paintings painted on the walls of his Spanish villa toward the end of Goya's life. The series was never commissioned and exhibited only posthumously. The painting, haunting and dark in nature, are indicative of a man alone, deaf - confronting the harrowing possibilities of eternal nothingness.
Jérôme Zonder - Jeu-denfants n°1 2010
The myth of cannibalism seemed to have a very Jungian catharsis for Goya - it is as if through Saturn's consuming of a child brought Goya a transmutative feeling of youth. Cannibalism though, the mere notion of a man eating another man brings back primitive visions. Artists in one medium or another have confronted cannibalism in society for centuries. Claude Lévi-Strauss, the French anthropologist, is quoted as saying, "“We are all cannibals. The simplest way to identify with others is still to eat them.” Really now? An exhibition at the Me Collector's room in Berlin begs a question in return - all cannibals?
The exhibition All Cannibals? at me Collectors Room explores the topic of cannibalism (anthropophagy) in art. "Anthropophagy can be found in the myths of all cultures and ages—with examples ranging from antiquity, the Bible, or folk tales to classicist authors and modern horror movies. The recurring motifs of desire and brutality can likewise be found in modern and contemporary art. The concept for the exhibition emerged from the observation that the theme of consumable flesh seems to be gaining in significance within many current art works."
The exhibition is being held in cooperation with the Paris exhibition venue “la maison rouge.” Presented in parallel in the art magazine ART PRESS is a special issue on cannibalism, including interviews with collectors Antoine de Galbert and Thomas Olbricht in French and English. On view May 29 to August 21, 2011. www.me-berlin.com
Will Cotton - Consuming Folly - 2009