Cindy Sherman Essay

ARTIST/SUBJECTIVE

Cindy Sherman is a photographer, model and director who focuses on self-portraits that illustrate sexual stereotypes supported by the media. She is widely known for her feminist ideas expressed in her work. Born in New Jersey, January 19th, 1954 and studied at Buffalo State College, New York. She in fact failed her photography course and pursued painting. When she studied with Barbara Jo Revelle, a photography instructor, Sherman enjoyed the immediacy of photography compared to trying to paint perfectly. In 1977 Sherman started the series “Untitled Film Stills”, a set of sixty nine black and white photographs. They confronted the medias stereotypes. Now this body of work is her most known. She explores identity and femininity

through her role-play approach to photography. Using makeup, wigs and costumes to convey her signature style of strange subjects as well as dramatic lighting. She once has explained that her self portraits are not of herself, she is a character and the subject in the photographs are theses characters she creates. She stated “I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When i look at the pictures, i never see myself; they aren't self-portraits.” (New York Times,1990). This work later stemmed to her using the same idea about women but using more dramatic and often grotesque subjects, using heavy make up, facial expressions and bright lighting. More extreme, she used substances that looked similar to blood, vomit, faeces and prosthetic body parts.
She played with the idea of identity as a type of performance. Her photographs revealed the disturbing vision of contemporary America and solitary women. As a child she was fascinated by the experimentation process of dressing up. She mentioned she never dressed as a typical role model, her work links to this concept.
As well as a photographer Sherman worked as a director, producing her film “Office Killer” (1997) which was inspired by horror movies and not nearly as successful as her photography work.

ARTWORK/STRUCTURAL
Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) consists of seventy black and white photographs in which Sherman modelled and composed the images. All the images are gelatine silver prints. Every image features a different character from Sherman’s imagination, but they all have a unison of blank facial expressions. The characters were meant to depict generic female film characters, ranging from: housewives, Hollywood stars, teenagers, and sensual characters, that confronted the audiences perception of women. The series was influenced by the 1950s and 60s Hollywood film era. She wanted to show the characters without dramatic facial expressions juxtaposed to Hollywoods typical exaggerated emotions conveyed by female actresses of the time. The characters were meant to be individuals, breaking stereotypes, the irony is the audiences still linked the characters to medias stereotypes. They painted their own image of the women which was similar to conventional society. Sherman was exploring this idea of women always being the victim. Films always showed the women as vulnerable, but she wanted to show these same women as empowering, with blank, stern faces to confront the audience of their views. The audience often made narratives to match with the image but the face always conflicted the story.
In her work Untitled Film Still #21 (1978) Sherman uses her idea of facial expressions contradicting the audiences views and ideas
Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #21
1978 about the image.

Sherman’s costume, and use of architecture is what made this photograph Sherman’s most successful. Critics often relate this image to the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Although Sherman has stated that her work never stemmed from any existing films. Photographed in black and white as Sherman wanted the series to be unison and also reflect that of a film. She Becomes unrecognisable as she plays this character. The photograph was taken on the streets of New York. She is focus point but she's not centred to show the Architecture in the background. Its rather a close up compared to some of her other works that show her whole body or waist

up.

Another photograph from the series, Untitled Film Still #35 is of her role playing a housewife. This image is a full length portrait, in black and white. The photo looks to be on a slight angle to depict her being higher or with more authority. The background is a grubby door; an unkept area. This is a contradicting idea of the juxtaposed background and housewife character. A housewife is a woman who stays at home to cook, clean, and care for her family. This housewife character obviously doesn’t clean from the state of the background. But she stands tall and
Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #35 1979 with authority. She is more than a housewife. She is breaking the rules and stereotypes put on her identity.

The first six of the “Film Stills”, Sherman purposely caused the negatives to have a grainy result by dramatically changing the chemical bath temperature. She intended to make the photos poor quality, as she wanted them to appear “cheap and trashy… something you’d find in a novelty store.” One example of this idea of poor quality technically, is the Untitled Film Still #2. A more sensual character wrapped in a bath towel. The use of reflection gives the image more depth. She is positioned in the centre but the focal point is her face in the mirror.

WORLD /CULTURAL
Cindy Sherman’s series Untitled Film Stills was photographed during 1977-1980. The photographs are symbolic to the 1950s and 1960s film era and up rise of housewife culture. Sherman stated she was greatly influenced by the popular television and development of coloured television. With the uprising of television came a new source of media.

1950
Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #2 1977
Era of the house wife
Colour TV

1960
Vietnam war/flower power counter culture
Cold war - spy scuba USA and Russia
Marylin Monroe died
JFK assassinated
Martin Luther Kings I have a Dream
Moon landing
1970
Feminism
Hand held camera
1977 Elvis found dead

1980
1989 Recession
John Lennon assassinated
AIDS
1989 World Wide Web
Personal Computers (PC) introduced

1990
1995 OJ Simpson charged for murder

2000
2001 9/11 terrorist attack
2004 facebook
2009 Mickael Jackson dies

2010
2015 same sex marriage legalised in USA
2016 Donald Trump elected as President

AUDIENCE/POSTMORDERN
Sherman’s work can be seen as postmodern as it has a social statement and also some what appropriates the 1950’s culture especially her Untitled Film Stills (1977-80).

She also questions the audiences assumptions and originality, and from being influenced by pop culture rather than fine art traditions, questions the art worlds views. At this time film stills were never recognised and artists never credited. Sherman’s success with her series changed how people viewed photography and also black and white photography.As colour had just boomed during this time, black and white was outdated. “Untitled Film Stills” were shown first at the non-profit gallery Artists Space where Sherman was working as a receptionist. Later in December 1995, the Museum of Modern Art, New York acquired all of the black and white photographs in the series for an estimated $1

million.
One of her series was to use the centrefold of a magazine. the idea being, men would open the page assuming to find a beautiful woman. In reality they their confronted by Sherman’s approach to capture women, instantly they felt they were violating these characters. She pushed the audience into an embarrassing intimacy. This lead the audience to feel bad about their expectations. This is a great example of how Sherman used her audience to convey messages and how her work was greatly inspired by her audience.