Woman as madman. As the grotesque. The primal and primitive underbelly that society erases all but the most glaring trace. She who is disturbed is disturbing for her lack of feminine grace. She who reminds us of Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction, of Medea, of Medusa, of gorgons and monsters of yore. The archetype of a woman who will destroy rather than create, who unleashes demons into this world like Pandora opening her box, this is but one of the many archetypes of the female that Cindy Sherman offers us.
Never one to shy from the discomfort that the unpretty reveals, Cindy Sherman’s work can be as revolting as it is beautiful. In Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors (Hatje Cantz) we are witness to the darkness that lies beneath, a darkness that is menacing as it creeps and crawls out of its resting place to reveal itself. The book is the catalogue for a show of the same name at Moderna Museeet, Stockholm; Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo; and Kunsthaus Zurich in Switzerland.
