An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_

Have you actually seen Cindy Sherman’s Instagram?

The US fine-art photographer just switched off her privacy settings, and boy, is there a lot to see!

There are few artists better suited to Instagram than Cindy Sherman. The 63-year-old American photographer and fine artist has, throughout her career, taken pictures of herself in a variety of outfits and settings. In her art, Sherman has been a B-movie starlet, a luckless, sunburnt glamour girl, a clown, a Renaissance-era aristocrat and, more recently, a social media micro-celebrity, as well as much more besides.

 

An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_
An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_

Sherman rarely presents herself as herself. As our Phaidon Focus book explains her “settings and characters invite the viewer to consider the relation of appearance and identity and also the way in which female stereotypes have been perpetuated not only by the media but also by the art world itself.”

 

An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_
An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_

So what should we make of Cindy Sherman’s Instagram account, which the artist has just  made public? There are plenty of selfies, some of which clearly relate to her fine-art work, some of which are better described as candid, personal snaps, and some which seem to occupy a place somewhere inbetween. She clearly has a lot of fun with Snapchat style face filters, but she’s also found time to post pictures from trips to London and Paris, as well as shots of some of her favourite art, family snaps and videos, and at least one newspaper image of the US president with bird droppings on the side of his head. Naughty Cindy!

 

An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_
An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_

You can scroll through the whole lot here, get some background and context on this important contemporary artist in our book, and of course, follow Phaidon’s own Instagram account here.

 

An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_
An image from Cindy Sherman's Instagram account, _cindysherman_