I posted a mirror selfie to Instagram last night, I tell Cindy Sherman . There were so many things to consider. Were the lighting and angle flattering? Did I capture my good side? She laughs.
“I do find it fascinating,” she says, “this whole tradition of taking a selfie in a mirror. You can see how a person’s posed, the way they’re holding the camera. There can be different outfits every day, but you’re always in your elevator.
In a way it becomes a conceptual photography project. It’s funny.” It’s a bizarre experience, discussing thirst traps with the woman who pioneered the selfie.
We meet at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens, Greece, where an exhibition of Sherman’s earliest works has just opened. It’s 40 degrees and humid – even the Acropolis has shut for the afternoon. But sitting across from me in an exhibition room, the 70-year-old is effortlessly cool and elegant.
She wears a white Loewe T-shirt, white shorts and Prada shoes, her silvery hair pulled back into a low ponytail. She is soft-spoken, kind and far more accommodating than you’d expect from someone with her level of success. To say that Sherman redefined portrait photography is an understatement.
Her signature practice – transforming herself into characters from saints and imperilled secretaries to grotesque clowns and elderly “ladies who lunch” (acting as her own makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist and director) – has influenced countless contemporary portraitists. She say.
