'I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.' Cindy Sherman
This striking colour photograph by Cindy Sherman sees the artist transform herself into an unnamed, fictional character, obscuring her own identity behind costume, makeup, and carefully constructed mise-en-scène. Sherman acts as both photographer and subject, yet deliberately erases any sense of personal autobiography, inviting the viewer to project their own narratives onto the ambiguous figure before them. The work challenges conventional notions of portraiture and selfhood, exploring how identity is performative, constructed, and ultimately unstable.
- Medium
- colour photograph
- Location
- Phillips, Salt Lake City, UT
- Spotted At
- Auction House · PhillipsView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Contemporary Art Evening Sale
June 27, 2013
Collectors with works by Cindy Sherman
Artists in conversation
Nan Goldin
American · b. 1953
Like Sherman, Goldin uses color photography to construct intimate and staged narratives around identity, gender, and selfhood, blurring the line between documentary and fiction in figurative photographic work with strong emotional and conceptual weight.
Yasumasa Morimura
Japanese · b. 1951
Morimura similarly inserts himself into constructed photographic tableaux using costume and makeup to erase his own identity and challenge conventional notions of portraiture, cultural identity, and representation in a conceptual and performative way directly parallel to Sherman's practice.
Nikki S. Lee
South Korean · b. 1970
Lee creates staged color photographs in which she transforms herself through costume and performance into various social and cultural roles, deliberately obscuring her own identity to explore questions of selfhood, belonging, and constructed identity in ways closely aligned with Sherman's conceptual and feminist photographic approach.
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