BOLDTYPE ISSUE #28: Design Credit

The cover of this issue of Boldtype is a detail of the photograph above, Untitled Film Still #14, by Cindy Sherman. It appears in Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, a volume published by the Museum of Modern Art and distributed by D.A.P./Distributed Art Publishers, Inc. The book unites all 69 of Sherman's iconic images made from 1977 to 1980. In 1996, MoMA purchased a complete set of the Untitled Film Stills for a reported $1 million, recognizing the project as "a landmark of its time... best understood as a single, seamless work of art."

Cindy Sherman was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, in 1954 and raised in Huntington, Long Island. Although her upbringing didn't emphasize the arts, Sherman has noted that even as a child she had a penchant for costumes and make-believe. Upon entering art school at the State University of New York at Buffalo, Sherman's initial, unfruitful forays into painting caused her to explore the alternative media of performance, film, minimalism, and body art that were then gaining ascendancy. In Buffalo, Sherman was a founding member of the alternative art space Hallwalls, which still thrives today. It was in that vibrant setting that her experiments with form began to gel. Eventually, photography won out, and Sherman moved to New York City. Her early projects, with filmstrip-like paper dolls and costumed portrait sittings in photo booths, provide an inkling of the self-representational mode that now dominates her career.

Aside from the Untitled Film Stills, Sherman's other important works include the Disasters and Fairy Tales series, which invoke horror and the grotesque; the History Portraits, wherein she re-enacts canonical Old Master paintings; and the Sex Pictures, the first series where she was completely absent. An artist's edition, produced in conjunction with Artes Magnus and the world-renowned porcelain maker Limoges, resulted in Tureen with Its Platter, a replica of 18th century Sèvres porcelain setting, emblazoned with the image of Sherman dressed as Madame de Pompadour. In 2003, Sherman's work was exhibited in various subway stations of the London Underground, in conjunction with an exhibit at the Serpentine Gallery.

Cindy Sherman is represented by Metro Pictures, New York.