Cindy Sherman

Untitled courtesy of  http://blog.danpontingstudio.com

Cindy Sherman is an artist who emerged in the late 1970’s first as a performance artist then as a photographer. Sherman’s work challenges the stereotypes of society. Her first complete work Untitled Film Stills comment on women’s role that emerged in the 1950’s and 1960’s.  In later works she comments on the male “master/genius” artists. Her work comments on the role that these stereotypes play in our culture and in art while at the same time do not reveal the true Cindy Sherman.

Untitled courtesy of  svlstg.com

During this time Sherman’s work was wildly popular but more so it asserted her power over representation. As the photographer and model Sherman was able to depict herself however she imagined, in later work she uses readymade dolls in sexually charged scenes. Her control over the depiction and comments on social stereotypes is what is more controversial then the photos themselves. The Feminist Art movement of the early 70s allowed Sherman to play with gender roles and stereotypes, “enabling her to act out the psychoanalytic notion of femininity as a masquerade.”(WC 383)

Untitled Film Still #13. 1978.
Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Moma.org who owns the whole series writes “In the Untitled Film Stills there are no Cleopatras, no ladies on trains, no women of a certain age. There are, of course, no men. The sixty-nine solitary heroines map a particular constellation of fictional femininity that took hold in postwar America—the period of Sherman's youth, and the ground-zero of our contemporary mythology. In finding a form for her own sensibility, Sherman touched a sensitive nerve in the culture at large.” This nerve was connection over recognizing that particular stereotype depicted and moving away from that social construct via the Feminist Movement. (Let’s not forget the 80s bring in Reagan and his conservative ideas whomp whomp)
After the start of her career Sherman continued to push the societal limits. Her doll series uses prosthetic dolls positioned in sexual positions sometimes, grotesque positions challenging the viewers comfort level. The fairy tale and disasters series show fantastic and lurid imagery that one would not expect from happily ever afters. Each series has put Sherman in different narratives, currently she is doing a series on contemporary types of older women, specifically seen around NYC.       

           Sherman’s conceptual photography has influenced many artists in different genres. Her representations of women have influenced Madonna, Lady Gaga, there reinvention of themselves every week, to Lena Dunham, exploring the 20 something female stereotypes. Other female photographers have followed her lead in making themselves the subject and exploring psychological concepts, Nikki Lee, Narcissister, and Katy Grannan to name a few. Her exploration into the ‘types’ of females and their social constructs continue to influence females across the spectrum.

Untitled Film Still #84.
Collection The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Work Cited:

Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art and Society, Ed.

Thames and Hudson. New York, New York, 2007.print.

www.moma.org

Hunter, Jacobus, Wheeler. Modern Art, 3rd Edition

Prentice Hall. New York, New York, 2004.print