Cindy Sherman screams for Ice Cream.
by leah
Ok, that’s not true. But her photo (as a floral-clad, disco bowler hat-wearing clown holding a bottle of pink something in a more than suggestive way) certainly did.
When Caitlin and I sat down with SFMOMA assistant curator of photography, Erin O’Toole, early last summer to flip through the Cindy Sherman catalog, we were a bit pressed to find anything the least bit, well… appetizing. Cindy Sherman is known best for her elaborately “disguised” self-portraits that focus on social role-playing and sexual stereotypes. There were a lot of clowns in the show, which are disturbing anyways, but Sherman’s clowns verge on grotesque. But when Erin turned to the clown in Untitled #415, it was decided. The white face paint and raspberry red pants beckoned to be vanilla ice cream and raspberry sorbet. And we were going to somehow incorporate edible holographic glitter. No one does raspberry sorbet better than Humphrey Slocombe, so we asked if they would be our go-to for this summertime treat. And as it turns out edible disco glitter exists and looks sensational on raspberry sorbet.
With every new dessert since the “Serra censor“, we take an extra step in our process of research and development to try to meet with the curator working on the exhibition. First and foremost, we seek out images and artworks that we are inspired by, but we have found it helpful to meet with exhibition curators to get a breakdown of what images are being highlighted, the artist’s main concerns, and bring to light any obstacles we might encounter. It’s a big deal for an artist to have a work included in a major museum exhibition or their own retrospective at that, but we want them to feel an extra sense of delight/satisfaction when they get to see that we made a dessert about it. Cindy Sherman was at the museum for a couple of days before the official opening and we desperately wanted her to get to try the float while she was here. Erin made it happen one afternoon and brought her up to the rooftop with her assistants for a preview. Although she didn’t scream, she did take a photo of it with her iPhone. Which Caitlin captured with her iPhone.
We also make great efforts to release a dessert in conjunction with the exhibition opening. For the Cindy Sherman member preview party we brought out our drink fountain and filled it with bubblegum soda for guests to sample with their glasses of ice cream + sorbet. It was a fancy time.
When asked what she thought of the float inspired by her photograph, she approved (phew!), but was concerned that people would take off with the custom coasters. There is a terrific write-up by John Birdsall in which he addresses this and includes this stunning photo by Chris Rochelle of all the components that make it up. You can also find the recipe for it on page 177 of Modern Art Desserts. To make your own Cindy Sherman coaster, so you don’t have steal ours visit www.modernartdesserts.com and click on the TEMPLATES button.
Cheers to that!
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