Evening Puts Artist and Photos in Focus

At the early evening reception to view the Cindy Sherman Retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Saturday night, there was space to see and to be seen. Those lucky enough to be invited to the 5:30 p.m. viewing before the full membership party started at 8 could even get to the wine bar without a wait, stand up close or far back from Sherman’s unsettling photographs and get a clear sighting of the New York artist herself, small of stature and dressed in modest black, distinctly low-key compared to the fantastic appearance in much of her eye-catching work.

Founders, patrons, artists, onlookers and some children mingled in the courtyard and galleries on the unseasonably hot night, some understanding Sherman’s takeoffs on popular imagery, some not.

“One man said, ‘I don’t like that erotic stuff.’ I told him, ‘There is no erotic stuff here,’ ” said Audrey Irmas, chairwoman of the MOCA board.

Jeanne Tripplehorn, who years ago wrote Sherman a fan letter after seeing “Untitled Film Stills,” is starring in Sherman’s first movie, a low-budget horror flick, “Office Killer.”

“She’s really collaborative. Shy, sweet, never lost her cool. . . ,” said Tripplehorn. “When I visited her workroom in New York, she let me look through her drawers, so to speak, and it was wonderful to see all the props from the photos she has saved--the great wigs and the plastic buttocks . . . .”

Sherman said she’d never wanted to make a movie before, but she’d have been “crazy to turn down this opportunity.”

“Every scene in the movie is imbued with Cindy’s vision,” said Marcus Hu, co-president of Strand, which is releasing this “art house horror film,” the first in a line planned by New York-based Good Fear Productions. “Office Killer” opens Dec. 5 at the Nuart.

Coinciding with the release of her movie, Sherman has selected a special program of films, including Michael Powell’s 1959 view of royalism, “Peeping Tom,” and Sam Fuller’s 1964 “The Naked Kiss,” to run at MOCA during January.

A rumor that Madonna was in the building circulated briefly, but in fact neither she, nor that other transformation artist, Michael Jackson, who had also been sent an invitation, showed up.

Those who did included another “Office Killer” star, Carol Kane; Amada Cruz from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, who jointly organized the retrospective; and, full of praise for the show, Viva, whose ex-husband Michel Auder is now married to Sherman.