Cindy Sherman - Untitled # 412 (2003)
"In her most recent work,...[Cindy] Sherman has created a group of images of clowns that were initially inspired by an article of clothing - pyjamas with fur-like buttons - which she had purchased at a yard sale a decade earlier. Sherman has commented that she wanted to make new characters that were 'intense, with a nasty side or an ugly side, but also with a real pathos about [them] - and [clowns] have an underlying sense of sadness while they're trying to cheer people up. Clowns are sad, but they're also psychotically, hysterically happy.' In light of Sherman's career-long interest in artifice and masquerade, this subject mirrors her self- transformation through costumes, make-up, wigs and prosthetics. What is strikingly similar between Sherman's creative process and the way clowns create personas is the hermetic approach they take: like the artist in her work, 'a clown is their [sic] own writer, director, costumer, make-up artist, and prop-man.'"
From Cindy Sherman - (exhibition catalogue with text) by Rochelle Steiner and Lorrie Moore
"In her most recent work,...[Cindy] Sherman has created a group of images of clowns that were initially inspired by an article of clothing - pyjamas with fur-like buttons - which she had purchased at a yard sale a decade earlier. Sherman has commented that she wanted to make new characters that were 'intense, with a nasty side or an ugly side, but also with a real pathos about [them] - and [clowns] have an underlying sense of sadness while they're trying to cheer people up. Clowns are sad, but they're also psychotically, hysterically happy.' In light of Sherman's career-long interest in artifice and masquerade, this subject mirrors her self- transformation through costumes, make-up, wigs and prosthetics. What is strikingly similar between Sherman's creative process and the way clowns create personas is the hermetic approach they take: like the artist in her work, 'a clown is their [sic] own writer, director, costumer, make-up artist, and prop-man.'"
From Cindy Sherman - (exhibition catalogue with text) by Rochelle Steiner and Lorrie Moore
