Tapestries. Cindy Sherman. until June 5, 2023. ARoS Aarhus Art Museum, Aarhus – Denmark.

Few artists have defined the era of post modernity more than Cindy Sherman (b. 1954, Glen Ridge, USA). Sherman is renowned for her photographic series, produced over many years, in which she transforms herself as characters. In 2017 a new series emerged on-line. Sherman started posting ‘selfies’. These startling images, commenting on the phenomenon of face altering apps/applications, have now been given a new grandeur and permanent status using the fine and revered craft of tapestry. In Tapestries Sherman brings 21st century ‘face’ technology together with the traditional craft of tapestry making. Sherman’s ‘selfies’ were originally produced as a series that she ‘shared’ on her social media site. Created using face altering platforms available for smartphones, she amassed a series of grotesques and imaginary personae.

Too small in format to be reproduced in photography at epic scale, Sherman uses tapestry to elevate these shape shifted selves to the importance and permanence of the official portraits made for nobility and the wealthy. These works are Cindy Sherman’s first major exploration of a medium beyond photography. The tapestries are created by master makers in Belgium where tapestry making has been a highly valued practice since the 15th century. Sherman revels in the absurdity and the perversity of transforming that which is considered ephemeral and fleeting into such historical legacy and perpetuity.

Cindy Sherman is internationally renowned for her works that scrutinize identity; the role of the female under the patriarchal gaze of cinema; the role of the female muse for the surrealist artist; the celebrity construction at the heart of portraiture; the typology of faces and figures. She has made works that exemplify the shifting, morphing sense of the self in our era of personality consumption and hyper-visuality and gender fluidity.