LPA Pick / National Portrait Gallery / Cindy Sherman
LPA Culture Corner has had a little rebrand - please may we introduce LPA Pick! Our new regular feature where we showcase each of our top ‘picks’ of culture in London every 3 months.
In this new series we will be exploring everything ‘Photography’ that London has to offer and what a better way to kick it off than with a visit down the road to the National Portrait Gallery for Chloe’s first ‘LPA Pick’ the Cindy Sherman Exhibition.
In this major new retrospective the exhibition explores Sherman’s work right from the beginning of her practice to the present day - watching her development in representing identity using cultural platforms such as magazine and cinema.
All 5 of us really enjoyed the exhibition and felt that the evolution of Sherman’s work was cleverly curated and very thorough and everyone had their favourites.
Anna and Georgina’s favourite series was ‘Cover Girls’. In this series Sherman is seen mimicking the original image and then consequently mocking the models facial expressions.
Cover Girl (Vogue), Cindy Sherman. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
Clio’s favourite series was ‘Untitled Film Stills’ possibly Sherman’s most iconic and famous work. Within this series Sherman creates ambiguous film scenarios in which she guises herself as stereotypical portrayals of women.
Untitled Film Still #21, Cindy Sherman. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
Lisa’s favourite series was the Society Portraits from 2008 in which Sherman continues her investigation into distorted ideas of beauty. The characters seem tragic and vulgar, struggling to attain a level of modern beauty.
Untitled #466, Cindy Sherman. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
And finally Chloe’s favourite series was Sherman’s Fashion series. In 1983 Sherman produced a series of fourteen photographs initiated by an Interview magazine advertising campaign for the clothing store Dianne B. In this series Sherman mocks the fashion industry, the female persona is displayed as imperfect, distorted and neurotic.
Untitled #122, Cindy Sherman. Courtesy of National Portrait Gallery
Halfway around the exhibition we got a chance to take our own studio portrait - I’m not sure we’re quite up to Cindy’s level!
Clio, Anna, Lisa, Chloe (and Georgina behind the camera)
We all had an absolutely great evening together discussing photography and although we all had different opinions on Cindy Sherman’s work we all thoroughly enjoyed the exhibition (and the Greek dinner afterwards!) Watch out for the next LPA Pick in October!