Untitled

The portrait Untitled, 2016 could have come straight out of a 1920s fashion or film magazine. The model's outfit and hairstyle, as well as the sofa she sits on, match that era’s style. Yet the surreal, inconsistent backdrop of a hilltop Mediterranean village standing out against an abstract metal ground deliberately deconstructs the screen of this simulacrum.

The model is Cindy Sherman, unrecognizable in this embodiment of stereotypical femininity. The work belongs to a 2016 series on the flapper as a social construction peculiar to the inter-war period. However, the figure no longer displays the transgressive nature that defined young American women of the Roaring Twenties rebelling against the conventions of their time. On the contrary, she seems to have become standardised and more staid with age.

Untitled, 2016 was first presented by the Pinault Collection at the 2018 "Dancing with Myself" show at the Punta della Dogana in Venice.