Gender and art

New Film Stills present a series of gelatin silver print photographs made in 2013 ranging in scale from 40-by-30 inch to 8-by-10 inch. Recreating Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, Franco positions his body in the same pose, attire and scenario as Sherman did as the subject in her stills nearly 30 years ago. “Like Sherman’s characters,” Bidart writes in the introduction to the catalogue, “the figures [Franco] portrays outrun one’s naturalistic expectations in their stoicism and defiance, in their mystery. Somewhere in their expressions they keep an awareness of ‘a connection to the void.’ With this book Franco has made something profound.”

James Franco: New Film Stills

from April 11 through May 3, 2014

Pace Gallery, New York City

http://www.pacegallery.com/

Cindy Sherman has never shied away from the grotesque, often donning masks, wigs and prosthetics to enhance the disturbing or macabre scenes in her photographs. While she's posed as pin-up girls and movie stars, it's the artist's uncanny transformation into monsters and decaying beauties that push the limits of what a self-portrait can reveal.

"Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors," a photography exhibit at Norway's Astrup Fearnley Museet, focuses on the utterly grim portrayals of human existence seen in her series like "Disasters," "Civil War" and "Horror & Surrealism." Sherman paints her face and distorts her body, crafting herself into identities that shock and confuse us.

"Untitled Horrors," on view at Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo until September 22, 2013.

http://afmuseet.no/en/hjem

"The Kunsthaus Zürich will play host to a major retrospective featuring American artist Cindy Sherman (b. 1954). Sherman is one of the leading exponents of staged photography. In her work she deals with issues of identity, (gender) roles and physicality, almost always using herself as the model."

Exhibition From 6 June to 14 September 2014 at The Kunsthaus Zürich.