Few artists have defined the era of postmodernism as clearly as Cindy Sherman. For several years, Sherman has been working with self-portraits - "selfies" - that distort, alter and caricature her facial features. These images have now taken the form of woven tapestries, and in this way Sherman combines the new technology of the 21st century with traditional craftsmanship.
Sherman's "selfies" were initially constructed as a series of images that she shared on social media. Using the various facial modification technologies available for smartphones, she created a variety of grotesque figures and fictional characters.
Due to the small format of the images, they cannot be enlarged like photographs. Cindy Sherman has therefore decided to give the images a new form: woven tapestries that lend the digitally transformed depictions the same dignity and immutability as the official portraits traditionally created for the nobility and the wealthy. This is the first time she has seriously explored a medium other than photography.
Installation photos @ ARoS 2023 © ARoS Aarhus Art Museum
The tapestries in the exhibition were made in Belgium, where tapestry weaving has been highly prized since the 15th century. Sherman deliberately works with the absurd in order to redesign something ephemeral in this way, and to transfer it into a new state of historical elevation.
Cindy Sherman is internationally renowned for her mask-like self-portraits that deal with questions of identity. She examines the role of women in relation to the patriarchal gaze of the medium of film and as a muse for the male surrealist artist. She examines how fame is constructed and reflected in the genre of the portrait - in a visual age where different personalities have become a commodity.
February 4 to June 5, 2023
