Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman\'s exhibition at Metro Pictures will be her first return to black and white photographs since her Untitled Film Stills of 1978-1980, almost twenty years ago.

The new photographs have a softly romantic appearance and a violently harsh sexual imagery. The low contrast matte grays and washed out refracted light in the work have the quality of both touched up studio portraits and the cruder tonality of soft porn pulp publications of the 40s and 50s. This series is reminiscent of earlier works by Sherman that are disturbing and provocative. Through melting and cutting, Sherman dismembers, mutilates and reconstructs dolls that were originally unnaturally exaggerated toys such as Barbie, GI Joe, the Disney characters Aladdin and Hercules and the gay-stereotype Billy and Carlos dolls. The mutant dolls are engaged in lurid behavior that reflects both violence and deviant sexuality as well as Sherman\'s dark sense of humor and her fascination with the macabre.

Sherman\'s work is currently the subject of a large retrospective exhibition organized by MOCA-Los Angeles and MCA-Chicago presently traveling to Sydney Australia . One of the most admired and influential artists of her generation, Sherman\'s work is represented in numerous major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art in New York which acquired a complete set of her "Untitled Film Stills" in 1996. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 1995, Sherman lives and works in New York City.