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concept:era contemporary

Untitled #96

Chromogenic colour photograph by Cindy Sherman, 1981. 61 × 121.9 cm. From the Centerfolds series. Sold at Christie's New York on May 11, 2011, for $3,890,500 — a record for the artist at the time. Shows Sherman lying on a floor in dramatic horizontal format, evoking a crime scene or melodrama.

Scholarly Significance

Photography market — Untitled #96 sold at Christie's 2011 for $3,890,500, a record for the artist and briefly the world photography auction record.

Notes

  • ·Part of the Centerfolds/Horizontals series (1981): all works use the landscape/horizontal format of a magazine centrefold; all feature Sherman as the subject.
  • ·The series was originally commissioned by Artforum magazine for a special issue; Artforum ultimately declined to publish it, apparently finding it too disturbing.
  • ·The works subvert the centrefold convention: instead of invitation, Sherman's expressions convey fear, vulnerability, or dissociation.
  • ·Sold Christie's New York, 11 May 2011, for $3,890,500 — briefly the world photography auction record before Gursky's Rhine II (November 2011) surpassed it.
  • ·The 2011 sale marked the decisive entry of photography into the stratospheric auction price tier previously reserved for painting and sculpture.