Cindy Sherman – The Complete Unti­tled Film Stills

A land­mark in the history of photog­ra­phy and femi­nist art, The Complete Unti­tled Film Stills gathers Cindy Sherman’s iconic series of 69 black-and-white photographs created between 1977 and 1980. Chan­nel­ing a cast of arche­typal female char­ac­ters — from ingénue to femme fatale — Sherman poses as each subject, deftly mimic­k­ing the aesthet­ics of mid-century cinema and fan-maga­zine culture. What results is a haunt­ingly famil­iar archive of fictional women who reflect and refract the roles society assigns.

More than just staged portraits, these images probe the construc­tion of iden­tity, gender, and cultural memory. With no men in sight, the soli­tary hero­ines are capti­vat­ing, complex, and delib­er­ately unre­solved — allow­ing the viewer to bring their own narra­tives to the frame. Orig­i­nally acquired by MoMA in 1995 and published here in full for the first time, this volume preserves the complete series in a sequence chosen by the artist herself.

An essen­tial mono­graph for photog­ra­phy enthu­si­asts, contem­po­rary art collec­tors, and anyone inter­ested in the inter­sec­tion of visual culture and gender politics.