American artist Cindy Sherman is renowned for her staged photographic self-portraits. Disguised and masked beyond recognition, she embodies different roles before the camera, much like an actress, finding inspiration for her characters in our media-driven society.
Sherman usually works alone in her studio and does everything herself: from set design and masking to the finished photograph. An exception to this is the two-part double portrait Untitled from 1980. It shows her with her fellow artist Richard Prince in nearly identical, pensive poses against a black background. Both are heavily made up, dressed in black suits, white shirts, and ties, and are wearing the same chestnut brown pageboy wig. In an interview, Sherman explained, “I did my makeup first, then his, so we would look like the same character.”
Created in the context of an exhibition, the double portrait is a playful exploration of social notions of gender and artistic identity. With her photographs, Sherman challenges clichéd ideas of beauty ideals, identity, and physicality.