| Untitled #153 | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Cindy Sherman |
| Year | 1985 |
| Type | Photograph |
| Medium | Chromogenic color print |
| Dimensions | 170 cm× 120 cm(67 in× 49 in); [1] |
| Owner | Anonymous |
Untitled #153 is a color photograph made by American visual artist Cindy Sherman in 1985. [1] In 2010, a print was auctioned for $2.7 million, making it one of the most expensive photographs ever sold at that time. [2]
The picture resulted from an invitation of the magazine Vanity Fair to create a series of photographs inspired by fairy tales. The photographs would never be published by the magazine but are amongst some of her best and more representative work. They tend to be more dark and grotesque than the sources where it is supposed to have taken inspiration, and aren't directly inspired by any specific fairy tale. The current picture is, like its usual in the artist, a self-portrait, depicting a woman, lying in the ground as a corpse, covered with mud in what appears to be a natural environment. [3]
Eva Respini said of the picture: “Even when Sherman is in the photographs, she appears doll-like and artificial, as in Untitled #153. Reminiscent of a crime scene photo, the picture shows a dead woman lying on the ground and covered in dirt, her glassy eyes opened wide, as if shocked by her own violent demise. Unlike a police photograph, however, this larger-than-life glossy picture is full of seductive detail, with rich descriptions of the colors and textures of the gravel background, the woman’s mussed hair, and her waxy face." [4]
There are prints of the photograph at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City. [5]
Sigmar Polke was a German painter and photographer.
Cynthia Morris Sherman is an American artist whose work consists primarily of photographic self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission.
Louise Lawler is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York. From the late 1970s onwards, Lawler’s work has focused on photographing portraits of other artists’ work, giving special attention to the spaces in which they are placed and methods used to make them. Examples of Lawler's photographs include images of paintings hanging on the walls of a museum, paintings on the walls of an art collector's opulent home, artwork in the process of being installed in a gallery, and sculptures in a gallery being viewed by spectators.
Dora Maar au Chat is an oil-on-canvas painting by Pablo Picasso. It was painted in 1941 and depicts Dora Maar, the artist's lover, seated on a chair with a small cat perched on her shoulders. The painting is listed as one of the most expensive paintings, after achieving a price of $95 million at Sotheby's on 3 May 2006. It is currently the sixth-highest-selling painting by Picasso.
99 Cent II Diptychon is a two-part colour photograph made by Andreas Gursky in 2001. It was based on an original photograph called 99 Cent, from 1999, sometimes called "99 cent.1999".
Banality is a series of sculptures by American artist Jeff Koons. The works were unveiled in 1988 and have become controversial for their use of copyrighted images. Several editions of the sculptures have sold at auction for millions of dollars.
Untitled #96 is a color photograph made by American visual artist Cindy Sherman in 1981. It is known as part of her Centerfold series of 12 pictures. On 11 May 2011, a print was auctioned for US$3.89 million, the highest price paid for a photographic print at that time, though the price has since been surpassed. Another print was sold by $2,882,500 at Christie's New York, at 8 May 2012.
Untitled Film Stills is a series of black and white photographs by American visual artist Cindy Sherman predominantly made between 1977 and 1980, which gained her international recognition. Sherman casts herself in various stereotypical female roles inspired by 1950's and 1960's films. They represent clichés or feminine types "that are deeply embedded in the cultural imagination." It was later sponsored by Madonna at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1997.
Nude, 1925 is a black and white photograph taken by Edward Weston in 1925. It holds the record for Weston's most expensive photograph after being sold for $1,609,000 at the Sotheby's New York on 8 April 2008, to Peter MacGill of the Pace-MacGill Gallery. The photograph was part of the Quillan Collection of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photographs, which was then auctioned.
Untitled Film Still #48 is a black and white photograph taken by Cindy Sherman in 1979. It is part of her Untitled Film Stills photographic series, taken from 1977 to 1980. This picture is also known as The Hitchhiker.
Untitled #92 is a color photograph created by Cindy Sherman in 1981. The picture is part of the photographic series Centerfolds, that she created for the magazine Artforum, in 1981, but were never published there.
Georgia O'Keeffe - Hands, also known as Georgia O'Keeffe (Hands), is a black and white photograph taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1919. It is part of a large group of more than 300 photographs that he took of the painter Georgia O'Keeffe, from 1917 prior to their 1924 marriage, through 1937.
Untitled #93 is a color photograph created by Cindy Sherman in 1981. It is part of her Centerfolds series of 12 photographs made for the Artforum magazine. They were never published there but went to be exhibited publicly the same year, to critical acclaim.
Untitled Film Still #21 is a black and white photograph taken by Cindy Sherman in 1978. It is part of her Untitled Film Stills photographic series, taken from 1977 to 1980. This photo was sold at auction for $871,500 in 2017. This picture is also known as The City Girl, because in this photo Sherman is posing as a Hitchcock-inspired "working woman" on the streets of a big city.
Eva Respini is a curator of contemporary art who served as chief curator (2015–2023) and deputy director for curatorial affairs (2022–2023) at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. She is also a lecturer at Harvard University Graduate School of Design.