CINDY SHERMAN: CENTERFOLDS

New York City, NY: Skarstedt Fine Art, 2003. First Edition. First Printing.. Hardcover. Fine/Fine Dust Jacket.. New York City, NY: Skarstedt Fine Art, 2003. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. First Edition/First Printing. 44 pages. "Bootleg"/Unauthorized Exhibition Catalog. Now considered a Cindy Sherman collectible item. The true First Edition. Withdrawn from sale, it is not clear how many copies were actually printed and of these, exactly how many copies escaped being pulped (very few) . Precedes and should not be confused with the subsequent 2004 Edition. This 2003 Edition was never sold commercially to the public, and an entirely new book was published a year later, in April 2004. The First Edition is now rare. A brilliant production by Honest NYC: Regular-sized volume format in wide oblong shape, simulating the centerfold format. Blue cloth boards with white titles on spine, as issued. Photographically-based re-creations by Cindy Sherman. Essay by Lisa Phillips. Printed on pristine-white, thick coated stock paper in the United States to the highest standards. In wraparound DJ with titles on the spine, as issued. Originally published to accompany the exhibition, "Cindy Sherman Centerfolds 1981", which was held from May 10 through June 14, 2003. Presents Cindy Sherman's "Centerfolds". A sequence of 2 X 4 foot images created in 1981 for Artforum Magazine that takes the horizontal centerfold as their physical and conceptual framework. In the end, the images were never run in the magazine because the editor was concerned that they would be misunderstood, as the provocatively best of Cindy Sherman's work always is. Yet they remain among the most affecting and powerful constructed images by Sherman. In them, her female characters "fill up the frame with an ambiguous presence, in your face but inaccessible, emotionally suggestive but ambivalently distanced". We identify the "centerfold" with Playboy Magazine, which was the case even more so in 1981, when she made them. The artist brilliantly appropriates the idea with her gallery of "Not-Playboy-Material", ordinary-looking women (Sherman, naturally, in various guises) , who project indifference and innocence as well as pain. It has never been fully revealed why "Centerfolds" was withdrawn, and then replaced with a new book that uses the square "portrait" format instead. The latter format could never ever do justice to the very idea of a centerfold, and thereby undermines Sherman's project. An absolute "must-have" title for Cindy Sherman collectors. This title is a contemporary art photography classic. This is one of few copies of the 2003 "Withdrawn/Unauthorized" First Hardcover Edition/First Printing still available online and is in especially fine condition: Clean, crisp, and bright. Please note: Copies available online have serious flaws or are the 2004 Edition. This is surely an accessible and lovely alternative. A rare copy thus. 12 color plates. Cindy Sherman's "Untitled Film Stills" was selected as one of the greatest photography books in "The Photobook". One of the most brilliant artist/photographers of our time. A fine copy. (SEE ALSO OTHER ANTHONY GOICOLEA TITLES IN OUR CATALOG). ISBN 0970909020.