Media Release.

From 19 November 2016 to 19 March 2017, City Gallery Wellington will present a new exhibition by foremost American artist Cindy Sherman.

Consistently featured on world-wide influential-artist lists, New York–based Sherman is renowned for her character portraits. Over close to four decades, her work has helped shape the way we think about not only photography and art but also gender, identity, and the role of women in contemporary society.

City Gallery Wellington Director Elizabeth Caldwell says, ‘Cindy Sherman has built an international reputation for an extraordinary body of work. She is one of the most significant and written about artists working today. We are thrilled to be the sole gallery presenting this exhibition in New Zealand.’

The exhibition, titled Cindy Sherman, will take over the whole of City Gallery and features more than fifty large-scale colour photographs and a site-specific mural, as well as an entirely new body of work produced by the artist in 2016.

The chameleon-like Sherman famously plays the role of model, make-up artist, stylist, and photographer in her photographs. Throughout her career she has cast herself in a range of personas—actress, society woman, clowns, fashion victim. These satirical portraits offer a sustained and cutting investigation into society’s fascination with issues such as female appearance, narcissism and the cult of celebrity.

Sherman has exhibited extensively and in 2012 was the subject of a major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She has also collaborated with some of the world’s most prestigious fashion houses.

Cindy Sherman is a Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Touring Exhibition. It is generously supported by Wellington City Council and City Gallery Foundation.