Anti-Fashion

• Cindy Sherman: Untitled #133, 1984, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
  © Cindy Sherman
• Cindy Sherman: Untitled #410, 2003, Private ownership
  © Cindy Sherman
• Cindy Sherman: Untitled #462, 2007/2008, Private collection, Europe
  © Cindy Sherman
• Cindy Sherman: Untitled #588, 2016/2018, Used with kind permission from the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Sprueth Magers © Cindy Sherman

For almost five decades, haute couture has played a constant role in the work of Cindy Sherman, one of the most influential photographers of our time. Utilising the transformative power of make-up, props and costumes, the US-American artist frequently serves as the protagonist of her elaborately staged images – without ever producing an actual self portrait.

Through to September 10, 2023, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart dedicates an exhibition to the photographer’s complex relationship with the world of fashion, and her subversive attitude towards what it stands for.  Even as a young college student, Sherman (b. 1954) browsed second-hand shops for suitable attire to orchestrate her early photographic works. Since then, the artist has succeeded in capturing the ambivalent interplay between fashion and fine-art photography like few others. Sherman utilises this mutual interaction to question the aesthetics of fashion photography, and the social norms, stereotypes and clichés on which they are based.

Curated by Dr. Alessandra Nappo, ‘Anti-Fashion’ is the first showcase to explore Sherman’s oeuvre specifically from this perspective.