CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 1/3/2013

ESSENTIAL 'CHOICE': Cindy Sherman Early Works

In the December issue of the esteemed library review, Choice, Princeton's H.B. Bennett writes, "The year 2012 was important for looking back on the work of American photographer Cindy Sherman. MoMA staged a massive retrospective beginning with the late 1970s and published an accompanying catalogue, Eva Respini's Cindy Sherman. Looking back a bit further is the equally massive Cindy Sherman: The Early Works, 1975-77.... This new catalogue features works produced largely while Sherman was an art student at SUNY-Buffalo. Many, such as the Air Shutter Release series (1975), are published here for the first time. The start of Sherman's artistic career is often attributed to the Untitled Film Stills (1977-80), but curator Gabriele Schor recovers the importance of Sherman's earlier work, demonstrating how the Bus Riders series (pictured here, from 1977), or A Play of Selves truly defined her artistic aims. Schor's essay perfectly escorts readers through this period, synthesizing past scholarship with her own in this engaging account of Sherman's life and the early years of the Hallwalls Contemporary Art Center. Reflecting generous access to those archives and new conversations with the artist and Hallwalls colleagues about Sherman's artwork, Schor's catalogue is a necessity for any visual arts or art history program. Summing up: Essential. "