Museum of Cycladic Art honours Cindy Sherman

One of the best exhibitions featured this season is presented in Athens at the wonderful Museum of Cycladic Art. Cindy Sherman at Cycladic: Early Works provides a thorough understanding of Sherman’s pioneering and significant early series. It is on view until November 2024 and is a must-see.

Throughout her immense oeuvre and career, Sherman has explored the grotesque aspects of humanity through the lens of horror and the mysterious. She has channelled and reconstructed familiar personas known to the collective psyche, often in unsettling ways, using prosthetics, theatrical effects, photographic techniques, and digital technologies.

Through the artist’s legendary early works such as Rear Screen Projections (1980), Centerfolds (1981) and Color Studies (1981-1982), Cindy Sherman at Cycladic: Early Works questions gender norms and stereotypes, raising issues of how society’s expectations have evolved.

On view in Athens is Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills (1977–1980) series and this is a rare chance to see them in their entirety. Consisting of 70 black-and-white photographs, Untitled Film Stills began after Sherman moved to New York City in 1977, aged 23. Inspired by 1950s and 1960s Hollywood, film noir, B movies and European art-house films, Sherman created images suggestive of the production stills used by movie studios to promote their films. The images, reminiscent of existing character types and genres, initiated conversations about gender roles, feminism and representation, remaining intentionally ambiguous and open to interpretations. These images are visceral and brilliant, and they transcend appearances.

The tension between artifice and identity in consumer culture is explored as well in the show, a theme that has been central to the artist’s practice.

Sherman’s works also resonate with the Museum’s collection of Cycladic art, one of the most complete private collections in the world. The famous marble female figurines of the 3rd millennium BC, central to Cycladic art have influenced the work of many 20th and 21st century artists.

Don’t miss the short film at the end. This twenty-minute segment from the film Transformation, a 2009 Art21 production, gives a rare insights into Sherman’s creative process, inspiration and use of props. It’s a fascinating interview and an amazing conclusion to the show.

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