Anti-fashion

A mirror on fashion and mass media in a powerful photographic work by Cindy Sherman. The book accompanying the first Cindy Sherman exhibition in the Low Countries

Cindy Sherman (b. 1954) is known for her pioneering work in photography, through which she explores themes of identity, gender and social roles by transforming herself into different personas in a variety of staged scenes. Anti-Fashion approaches her photographic oeuvre from a new perspective, focusing on the interaction between fashion and art. She uses her many commissions for magazines such as Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and her close collaboration with famous designers as a constant source of inspiration. Conversely, this contemporary artist also continues to influence the aesthetics of the fashion world today, providing essential impulses.

Sherman expresses her interest in fashion in a subversive way: her photographs depict people that are anything but desirable, contradicting all conventions of haute couture and the usual representations of beauty. Her wide range of characters shows the artificiality and mutability of identity, which seems more selectable, (self-) constructed and fluid than ever before.