Cindy Sherman
Sherman is a widely recognized and is one other the most influential and important artist within contemporary art. She explored the consturction of identity and the nature of representation and how people are presented, through her images from movies, television and magazines. Sherman was both the model and photographer for her images, she dressed and set the scene portraying the persona of other people.
" To create her photographs, she assumes
multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser,
stylist, and wardrobe mistress. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes,
makeup, prosthetics, and props, Sherman has deftly altered her physique
and surroundings to create a myriad of intriguing tableaus and
characters, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite." -
http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1170
"In the “Film Stills,” which you
made between 1977 and 1980, you created a cast of women, all played by
yourself, who seemed to be playing classic movie roles. How did the
series start?
When I moved to New York, in the summer of
’77, I was trying to think of a new way to take pictures and tell a
story. David Salle had been working at some sleazy magazine company
where they had lots of shots of half-clothed women around, for those
photo-novellas, like a cartoon but with photos. Slightly racy. It got me
thinking, this cheap, throwaway image—if you just look at one, you make
up your own story.
Why use yourself as a model?
I’d been
using myself in my work, in costumes and as characters, so it was
natural. I took one roll of film, and I had about six different setups
of characters that were all supposed to be this one actress at various
points in her career. In some she’s meant to look like the ingénue in
her first role. In others she’s a little bit more haggard, trying to
play a younger part. I purposely developed the film in hotter chemicals
to make it crackle because I wanted it to look kind of bad and grainy." -
http://nymag.com/anniversary/40th/culture/45773/
Untitled Film Stills -
"Starting with the game-changing black-and-white “Untitled Film Stills”
she created in the late 1970s, Cindy Sherman has shown herself to be the
ultimate master of self-morphing, utilizing everything from
old-fashioned makeup and prosthetics to digital technology, inventing
and portraying extraordinary alter egos and multiple identities that
brilliantly reflect our image-saturated culture—and in the process
inventing her own genre." -
http://www.artnews.com/2012/02/14/the-cindy-sherman-effect/
Sherman used her skills to produce iconic photographs that were like stills from films, she placed herself in the role of another character, setting the scene to capture an image that shows a previous or present acting experience, even though it may not necessarily be reality.
"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."
"Although most of the characters are invented, we sense right away that
we already know them. That twinge of instant recognition is what makes
the series tick, and it arises from Cindy Sherman's uncanny poise. There
is no wink at the viewer, no open irony, no camp. As Warhol said,
"She's good enough to be a real actress."
-
http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/sherman/
"Modeling in several roles, she reveals gender as an unstable and
constructed position, which suggests that there is no innate biological
female identity. On the contrary, women adopt several roles and
identities depending on their circumstances. Therefore, the roles in the
Untitled Film Stills series vary from an immature schoolgirl
to an attractive seducer and from a glamour diva to a caring housewife.
Importantly, her work encourages self-reflection in the spectator. As
Sherman argues, “I’m trying to make other people recognize something of
themselves rather than me.”-
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/sherman.html
