Narrator

This photograph was commissioned by Vogue Paris. All of Sherman’s characters in this image are wearing clothes by the couture designer Balenciaga.

Curatorial Assistant, Lucy Gallun.

Lucy Gallun

In this scene, it’s as if we’re at a rooftop party with plants in the background, red plastic cups, these women look like they were just laughing, gossiping, and they’ve turned to look at the society portraitist who’s taking their picture. The looks on their faces are exaggerated; their makeup is exaggerated, perfect eyebrows, long nails, tanned bodies. Each of the characters is engaged with the viewer but also with one another, as if they’re working together in a narrative scene.

This is the first series that was shot completely using digital processes. Picturing more than one character in a composition was something that Sherman was interested in exploring, and that digital processes allowed her to do.

Narrator

Cindy Sherman.

Cindy Sherman archival audio

I love shooting digitally, I would never go back. But I feel like I get so much more obsessed with working now, because I can just keep going. And I look back on those old days and I think, ‘Well at least when I had those two or three hours while the film was being developed, that’s when I could go food shopping;’ Because now it’s, ‘I’m just so busy working I don’t have time to laughing.