In a recent interview, Cindy Sherman revealed that she is reading Ottessa Moshfegh’s work. In the author’s novel My rest and relaxation for a yeara character says, “Look soon we will be old and ugly. Life is short, you know? Young, leaving a beautiful corpse behind.” Sherman’s portrayal of women often turns to weird weirdness, which is related to this mentality. Her production – helped by prosthetics and digital technologies alone, is increasingly disturbing, addressing the impact of age on women’s bodies, and even charismatic movie stars and well-dressed social women can’t escape. The value of beautiful corpses and the “old and ugly” life spent on Sherman’s role shrouds the real women in our patriarchal society.
The long-term obsession with artists’ exploration of gender expression and social structure characters has not diminished. Last year alone, Sherman held a solo exhibition in Belgium at Fomu Fotomuseum Antwerp, Belgium, the Swiss Art Museum in Greece, Photo Elysée and Espace Louis vuitton Seoul in Switzerland. Her latest work at the Menorca location in Hauser & Wirth, whose work spans eight series from the 1970s to the 2010s. The title “Cindy Sherman. Women” nods to the 1936 drama, which includes an all-female actor written by Clare Boothe Luce. At the time, it was a big blow to Broadway, and filmed twice. Boothe Luce as a writer, social hostess and sponsor of art embodies female success. “She is a person with multiple identities, very [akin to] Cindy Sherman and his subject.
Sherman’s replay of improvisational periods about women: The show begins with works that began in the past decade and then returns to the artist’s earliest images in time. According to Barson, “It wasn’t a full-scale show anyway, but it did cover her career.”
The Open Room has two large series, both of which are committees for print publications. Ominous landscape (2010-12) was for British magazine pop music, and for this purpose, Sherman went deep into the Chanel archives and wore old-fashioned works. (Since Sherman hasn’t actually named any of her works Untitled movie stills1977-1980; others describe her series through their content, and these informal titles tend to stick with them. Hauser & Wirth himself is the perfect island location in the port of Mahon on Illa del Rei. The second series in the room shows two images of the 2016 series made for Harper’s Fair – most notably the characters of Marc Jacobs’ gorgeous coat and matching bag holding an early iPhone in an uncoordinated forest environment. Sherman is committed to living in different versions of femininity through her poses and gestures, “tell us the story behind these characters,” Barson said. “She is an incredible actress and storyteller.”
See also: Jenna Gribbon’s Milan debut empathy and everyday magic
The second room hosts a series called Bend (2016-2018), inspired by promotional stills from the 1920s and 1930s; it is with the fresh liberation of modern women, red intoxication and smoking. Although nominally unquestionable, the background hints at the cabarets of New York or the Neue Sachlichkeit in Berlin. The aging star portrays the fighters admit that in the words of the entertainment industry, they are surpassing their peak state. Did Sherman judge these women to twist themselves to suit the mold that youth obsessed with? Barson’s soft point: “I don’t think you can’t have this level of proximity and accuracy without sympathy.” In the ART21 documentary video at the end of the exhibition, Sherman denies intending to criticize her subject, even if it appears unbeautiful.
Next is Sherman’s most famous series Untitled movie stills (1977-1980), drawn from the iconic portfolio of seventy black and white photos, aiming to cover the careers of individual actresses. Sherman draws from Wart Cinema: Hollywood in the 1950s, Nouvelle, France, Italian Neo-Realist Cinema. Before the advent of digital technology, Sherman performed her numbers directly in their environment (“It’s similar to shooting on the spot,” Balson said. A wall blew up a movie that still had wallpaper hanging on it, and the photo hangs: “A little bit of a heavy-tongued learning.”
The late 1970s was the era of the picture generation, an art cohort that tells the traps of the mass media (which included Laurie Simmons, Richard Prince and Barbara Kruger). This is “the women’s movement claims that the women’s bodies are a place of political struggle, most importantly mobilizing around abortion rights, but other auxiliary issues stir up excitement for medical marginalization and sexuality itself as the root cause of women’s oppression,” theorist Laura Mulvey wrote in 1991, famously tying Sherman’s labor in artistic theory to make Sherman’s labor competition. “The politics of the body logically leads to the politics of the body’s representation”, which leads to what she thinks is “political aesthetics.”
Regarding the topic of political aesthetics, Balson points to John Berger’s Observation methodPublished in 1972, it carefully examines how men think about women and how women deal with being treated. This superconsciousness is at the heart of Sherman’s self-ministerial work. Barson asserted that Sherman was “decades before our current social media moments and the construction of camera identities.”
In the next room, there are three different series from Sherman’s early production that were produced when she was a college student. Bus rider (1976) demonstrates the reliable typology of public transportation roles, grabbing books or holding grocery store paper bags, and The mystery of murder More clear. Neither series was shown until 2000. The last series in the room, line-up (1977), to remind people of the makeup of “early expressionist films”. No trick to camouflage image making: cables are visible in these black and white portraits.
The last room hosts a luxurious old Grande Dame in the Golden Frame (the only non-light photography frame on the show) Bend series. In this Social portrait Starting in the 2008 series, the woman, produced in front of the green screen, only emphasized her over-correction of her seniority.
Throughout the show, Barson celebrates Sherman’s ability to merge collective images and blend them into something new, although it feels quite existing. “I think it’s her talent: this incredible trick to synthesize everything we see… and put it in an image,” Barson said.
“Cindy Sherman. woman”As of October 26, 2025, Hauser & Wirth, Menorca.
More exhibition reviews
