Cindy Sherman shoots the wives of the rich

In her superlative new series, the American photographer of female identities, Cindy Sherman presents us with a gallery of wealthy and proud women, past middle age, whose heavily-made up faces betray the wrinkles and scars of plastic surgery.

These are merciless images, meticulous in their tackiness, of expensively-dressed femininity, attempting to preserve the beauty of youth. Sherman’s women pose in front of porticos, as if outside their own faux-classical bungalows; they sit awkwardly to attention in plush "Dallas"-style lounges or are snapped on holiday against the 19th century apartment blocks of Paris.

In every photograph, Sherman is — as she has been for 30 years — both the photographer and the model, assuming another perfectly-calculated female identity with wardrobe, make-up, prostheses and false teeth. Back in the late Seventies, Sherman was at the vanguard of a group of New York artists, whose themes were the ever-repeating formulae of popular and media imagery. She began with "film stills" in which she appeared to be the starlet of an instantly recognisable but impossible-to-name movie.

Later she made series in which she depicted her herself as the victim of horrific violence or as a clown. Sherman says her new work was inspired by the genre of self-portraits commissioned by the wealthy but she appears to be making a much more confrontational statements, turning the camera on the art world and taking on the guise of the wives of billionaire art collectors.

This exhibition contains only five photographs, from the complete series of 14, which is shame, but it is more powerful than most exhibitions 10 times its size.
Until 27 May. Information: 020 7408 1613, www.spruethmagers.net.

Cindy Sherman: A Play Of Selves
Spruth Magers
Grafton Street, W1S 4EH