Cynthia Morris Sherman (born January 19, 1954) is an American
artist
An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, th ...
whose work consists primarily of
photograph
A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
ic
self-portrait
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...
s, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
Her breakthrough work is often considered to be the collected ''
Untitled Film Stills
''Untitled Film Stills'' is a series of black and white photographs by American visual artist Cindy Sherman predominantly made between 1977 and 1980, which gained her international recognition. Sherman casts herself in various stereotypical femal ...
'', a series of 70 black-and-white photographs of herself evoking typical female roles in
performance
A performance is an act of staging or presenting a play, concert, or other form of entertainment. It is also defined as the action or process of carrying out or accomplishing an action, task, or function.
Management science
In the work place ...
media (especially
arthouse films and popular
B-movie
A B movie or B film is a low-budget commercial motion picture. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified films intended for distribution as the less-publicized bottom half of a double featur ...
s). In the 1980s, she used color film and large prints, and focused more on costume, lighting and facial expression.
Early life and education
Sherman was born on January 19, 1954, in
Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the youngest of the five children of Dorothy and Charles Sherman. Shortly after her birth, her family moved to the township of
Huntington, Long Island. Her father worked as an engineer for
Grumman Aircraft. Her mother taught reading to children with learning difficulties.
[Simon Hattenstone (January 15, 2011)]
Sherman: Me, myself and I
'' The Guardian''. Sherman has described her mother as good to a fault, and her father as strict and cruel. She was raised
Episcopalian
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the l ...
.
In 1972, Sherman enrolled in the
visual arts department at
Buffalo State College, where she began painting. During this time, she began to explore the ideas which became a hallmark of her work: She dressed herself as different characters, cobbled together from thrift-store clothing.
Frustrated with what she saw as the limitations of painting as a medium of art, she abandoned it and took up photography. "
ere was nothing more to say
hrough painting, she recalled. "I was meticulously copying other art, and then I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead." Sherman has said about this time: "One of the reasons I started photographing myself was that supposedly in the spring one of my teachers would take the class out to a place near Buffalo where there were waterfalls and everybody romps around without clothes on and takes pictures of each other. I thought, ‘Oh, I don't want to do this. But if we're going to have to go to the woods I better deal with it early.’ Luckily we never had to do that."
She spent the remainder of her college education focused on photography. Though Sherman had failed a required photography class as a freshman, she repeated the course with Barbara Jo Revelle, whom she credited with introducing her to conceptual art and other contemporary forms.
At college she met
Robert Longo, a fellow artist who encouraged her to record her process of "dolling up" for parties. This was the beginning of her Untitled Film Still series.
In 1974, together with Longo,
Charles Clough and
Nancy Dwyer
Nancy Dwyer (born 1954) is an American contemporary artist whose works include paintings, works on paper, public art, word sculpture and furniture art. Her work has been exhibited widely at venues including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the ...
, she created
Hallwalls
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center (aka Hallwalls) is a non-profit art organization located in Buffalo, New York. Since 1974, Hallwalls has shown and shows the work of contemporary artists of diverse backgrounds who work in film, video, literatur ...
, an arts center intended as a space that would accommodate artists from diverse backgrounds. Sherman was also exposed to the contemporary art exhibited at the
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, the two Buffalo campuses of the
SUNY school system, Media Studies Buffalo, and the Center for Exploratory and Perceptual Arts, and
Artpark
Earl W. Brydges Artpark State Park (or Earl W. Brydges State Artpark) is a state park located in the Village of Lewiston in Niagara County, New York. The park, which is officially named after former New York State Senator Earl Brydges, is gen ...
, in nearby
Lewiston, N.Y.
[ G. Roger Denson (March 5, 2012)]
Cindy Sherman as Orson Welles... as John Ford... as Vittorio De Sica... as Alfred Hitchcock...
''Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
''; accessed February 24, 2015.
It was in Buffalo that Sherman encountered the photo-based conceptual works of artists
Hannah Wilke,
Eleanor Antin, and
Adrian Piper
Adrian Margaret Smith Piper (born September 20, 1948) is an American conceptual artist and Kantian philosopher. Her work addresses how and why those involved in more than one discipline may experience professional ostracism, otherness, racia ...
. Along with artists like
Laurie Simmons
Laurie may refer to:
Places
* Laurie, Cantal, France, a commune
* Laurie, Missouri, United States, a village
* Laurie Island, Antarctica
Music
* Laurie Records, a record label
* ''Laurie'' (EP), a 1992 album by Daniel Johnston
* "Laurie (Stran ...
,
Louise Lawler, and
Barbara Kruger, Sherman is considered to be part of the
Pictures Generation.
Photography
Sherman works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of costumes. To create her photographs, Sherman shoots alone in her studio, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress, and model.
Early work
''Bus Riders'' (1976–2000) is a series of photographs that feature the artist as a variety of meticulously observed characters. The photographs were shot in 1976 for the Bus Authority for display on a bus. Sherman used costumes and make-up, including blackface, to transform her identity for each image, and the cutout characters were lined up along the bus's advertising strip. Some critiques say that this work showed insensitivity to race through the use of blackface makeup while others state that it was rather with the intention of exposing racism embedded in society.
Other early works involved cutout figures, such as the Murder Mystery and Play of Selves.
In her landmark photograph series ''Untitled Film Stills'', (1977–80), Sherman appears as B-movie and film noir actresses. When asked if she considers herself to be acting in her photographs, Sherman said, "I never thought I was acting. When I became involved with close-ups I needed more information in the expression. I couldn't depend on background or atmosphere. I wanted the story to come from the face. Somehow the acting just happened."
Many of Sherman's photo series, like the 1981 ''Centerfolds,'' call attention to stereotypes of women in society, films, television and magazines. When talking about one of her centerfold pictures Sherman stated, "In content I wanted a man opening up the magazine suddenly look at it with an expectation of something lascivious and then feel like the violator that they would be looking at this woman who is perhaps a victim. I didn't think of them as victims at the time... Obviously I'm trying to make someone feel bad for having a certain expectation".
She explained to ''The New York Times'' in 1990, "I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear." She describes her process as intuitive, and that she responds to elements of a setting such as light, mood, location, and costume, and will continue to change external elements until she finds what she wants. She has said of her process, "I think of becoming a different person. I look into a mirror next to the camera…it’s trance-like. By staring into it I try to become that character through the lens ... When I see what I want, my intuition takes over—both in the 'acting' and in the editing. Seeing that other person that’s up there, that’s what I want. It's like magic."
''Untitled Film Stills''
The series ''
Untitled Film Stills
''Untitled Film Stills'' is a series of black and white photographs by American visual artist Cindy Sherman predominantly made between 1977 and 1980, which gained her international recognition. Sherman casts herself in various stereotypical femal ...
'' (1977–1980), with which Cindy Sherman achieved international recognition, consists of 69 black-and-white photographs. The artist poses in different roles (librarians, hillbillies, and seductresses), and settings (streets, yards, pools, beaches, and interiors), producing a result reminiscent of stills typical of Italian neorealism or American film noir of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
She avoided putting titles on the images to preserve their ambiguity. She would often pose her heroines as alone, expressionless, and in private. An overarching characteristic of her heroines were those that did not follow conventional ideas of marriage and family. They were rebellious women who either died as that or who were later tamed by society.
Modest in scale compared to Sherman's later cibachrome photographs, they are all 8 1/2 by 11 inches, each displayed in identical, simple black frames.
Sherman used her own possessions as props, or sometimes borrowed, as in ''Untitled Film Still #11'' in which the doggy pillow belongs to a friend. The shots were also largely taken in her own apartment.
The ''Untitled Film Stills'' fall into several distinct groups:
* The first six are grainy and slightly out of focus (e.g. ''Untitled #4'').
* The next group was taken in 1978 at
Robert Longo's family beach house on the north fork of Long Island. (Sherman met Longo in 1976 and began a relationship with him)
* Later in 1978, Sherman began taking shots in outdoor locations around the city. E.g. ''Untitled Film Still #21''
* Sherman later returned to her apartment, preferring to work from home. She created her version of a
Sophia Loren
Sofia Costanza Brigida Villani Scicolone (; born 20 September 1934), known professionally as Sophia Loren ( , ), is an Italian actress. She was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest female stars of Classical Hollywood ci ...
character from the movie ''
Two Women''. (E.g. ''Untitled Film Still #35 (1979))
* She took several photographs in the series while preparing for a road trip to Arizona with her parents. ''
Untitled Film Still#48'' (1979), also known as ''The Hitchhiker'', was shot by Sherman’s father
[Simon Schama (February 3, 2012)]
Cindy Sherman talks to Simon Schama
''Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nikke ...
''. at sunset one evening during the trip.
* The remainder of the series was shot around New York, like ''Untitled #54'', often featuring a blonde victim typical of film noir.
[Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, June 26-September 2, 1997](_blank)
MoMA.
The
Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan purchased the series for an estimated $1 million in 1995.
1980s
In addition to her film stills, Sherman has appropriated a number of other visual forms—the centerfold, fashion photograph, historical portrait, and soft-core sex image. These and other series, like the 1980s ''Fairy Tales and Disasters'' sequence, were shown for the first time at the
Metro Pictures Gallery in New York City.
It was with her series ''Rear Screen Projections'', 1980, that Sherman switched from black-and-white to color and to clearly larger formats. ''Centerfolds/Horizontals'', 1981, are inspired by the center spreads in fashion and pornographic magazines. The twelve (24 by 48 inches) photographs were initially commissioned — but not used — by
Artforum's Editor in Chief Ingrid Sischy for an artist's section in the magazine. She poses either on the floor or in bed, usually recumbent and often supine.
[Andy Grundberg (November 22, 1981)]
"Cindy Sherman: A Playful and Political Post-Modernist"
nytimes.com, November 22, 1981; accessed February 24, 2015. About her aims with the self-portraits, Sherman has said: "Some of them I'd hope would seem very psychological. While I'm working I might feel as tormented as the person I'm portraying."
[
In 1982, Sherman began her ''Pink Robes'' series which includes Untitled #97, #98, #99 and #100.
In ''Fairy Tales'', 1985, and ''Disasters'', 1986–1989, Cindy Sherman uses visible prostheses and mannequins for the first time.] Provoked by the 1989 NEA funding controversy involving photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe
Robert Michael Mapplethorpe (; November 4, 1946 – March 9, 1989) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs. His work featured an array of subjects, including celebrity portraits, male and female nudes, self-p ...
and Andres Serrano
Andres Serrano (born August 15, 1950) is an American photographer and artist. His work, often considered transgressive art, includes photos of corpses and uses feces and bodily fluids. His '' Piss Christ'' (1987) is a red-tinged photograph of a ...
at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, as well as the way Jeff Koons modeled his porn star wife in his "Made in Heaven" series, Sherman produced the ''Sex'' series in 1989. For once she removed herself from the shots, as these photographs featured pieced-together medical dummies in flagrante delicto.
Between 1989 and 1990, Sherman made 35 large, color photographs restaging the settings of various European portrait paintings of the fifteenth through early 19th centuries under the title ''History Portraits''.
1990s
''Sex Pictures''
Sherman uses prosthetic limbs and mannequins to create her ''Sex Pictures'' series (1992). Hal Foster, an American art critic, describes Sherman's ''Sex Pictures'' in his article ''Obscene, Abject, Traumatic'' as " this scheme of things the impulse to erode the subject and to tear at the screen has driven Sherman ��to her recent work, where it is obliterated by the gaze."
Reviewer Jerry Saltz told ''New York'' magazine that Sherman's work is " shioned from dismembered and recombined mannequins, some adorned with pubic hair, one posed with a tampon in vagina, another with sausages being excreted from vulva, this was anti-porn porn, the unsexiest sex pictures ever made, visions of feigning, fighting, perversion. … Today, I think of Cindy Sherman as an artist who only gets better."
Greg Fallis of Utata Tribal Photography describes Sherman's ''Sex Pictures'' series and her work as follows: "With her ''Sex Pictures'', Sherman posed medical prostheses in sexualized positions, recreating—and strangely modifying—pornography. An example of this can be seen in her work entitled, ''Untitled,#264.'' Sherman displays herself with a body made of prosthetic. Her face is the only part of her that shows but is covered by a gas mask meant to emphasize the parts of the female body that tend to be over sexualized.
2000s
Between 2003 and 2004, Sherman produced the ''Clowns'' cycle, where the use of digital photography enabled her to create chromatically garish backdrops and montages of numerous characters. Set against opulent backdrops and presented in ornate frames, the characters in Sherman's 2008 untitled ''Society Portraits'' are not based on specific women, but the artist has made them look entirely familiar in their struggle with the standards of beauty that prevail in a youth- and status-obsessed culture.
Her exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 2012 also presented a photographic mural (2010–11) accompanied by films selected by Sherman. In this mural, she photoshopped her face with a decorative backdrop to transform herself into a fictitious environment. Along with other characters, Sherman toys with the idea of reality and fantasy together. Based on a 32-page insert[ Cathy Horyn (January 11, 2012)]
The Real Cindy Sherman
''Harper's Bazaar
''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...
''. Sherman did for ''POP
Pop or POP may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Music
* Pop music, a musical genre Artists
* POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade
* Pop!, a UK pop group
* Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band
Albums
* ''Pop'' (G ...
'' using vintage clothes from Chanel
Chanel ( , ) is a French high-end luxury fashion house founded in 1910 by Coco Chanel in Paris. Chanel specializes in women's ready-to-wear, luxury goods, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear. Chanel is ...
’s archive, a more recent series of large-scale pictures from 2012 depict outsized enigmatic female figures standing in striking isolation before ominous painterly landscapes the artist had photographed in Iceland during the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull
Between March and June 2010 a series of volcanic events at Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland caused enormous disruption to air travel across Western Europe.
The disruptions started over an initial period of six days in April 2010. Additional locali ...
and on the isle of Capri.
In 2017, she collaborated on a "selfie" project with W Magazine that was based on the concept of the "plandid," or "the planned candid photograph". Sherman utilized a variety of photo-correction apps to create her Instagram portraits.
From 2019 she showed self-portraits executed as tapestries by a Belgian workshop.
Fashion
Sherman's career has also included several fashion series, including designs for Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, and Marc Jacobs. In 1983, fashion designer and retailer Dianne Benson commissioned her to create a series of advertisements for her store, Dianne B., that appeared in several issues of Interview magazine
''Interview'' is an American magazine founded in late 1969 by artist Andy Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock. The magazine, nicknamed "The Crystal Ball of Pop", features interviews with celebrities, artists, musicians, and creative thinke ...
. Sherman also created photographs for an editorial in ''Harper's Bazaar
''Harper's Bazaar'' is an American monthly women's fashion magazine. It was first published in New York City on November 2, 1867, as the weekly ''Harper's Bazar''. ''Harper's Bazaar'' is published by Hearst and considers itself to be the st ...
'' in 1993. In 1994, she produced the ''Post Card Series for Comme des Garçons'' for the brand's autumn/winter 1994–95 collections in collaboration with Rei Kawakubo.
In 2006, she created a series of fashion advertisements for designer Marc Jacobs
Marc Jacobs (born April 9, 1963) is an American fashion designer. He is the head designer for his own fashion label, Marc Jacobs, and formerly Marc by Marc Jacobs, a diffusion line, which was produced for approximately 15 years, before it was d ...
. The advertisements themselves were photographed by Juergen Teller and released as a monograph by Rizzoli. For Balenciaga
Balenciaga SA ( ) is a luxury fashion house founded in 1919 by the Spanish designer Cristóbal Balenciaga in San Sebastian, Spain. Balenciaga produces ready-to-wear, footwear, handbags, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to C ...
, Sherman created the six-image series ''Cindy Sherman: Untitled (Balenciaga)'' in 2008; they were first shown to the public in 2010. Also in 2010, Sherman collaborated with Anna Hu on a design for a piece of jewelry.
Music and films
In the early 1990s, Sherman worked with Minneapolis band Babes in Toyland, providing photographs for covers for the albums ''Fontanelle'' and ''Painkillers'', creating a stage backdrop used in live concerts, and acting in the promotional video for the song "Bruise Violet." She also worked as a film director.
Sherman moved from photographs to film with her movie ''Office Killer
''Office Killer'' is a 1997 American comedy-horror film directed by Cindy Sherman. It was released in 1997 and stars Carol Kane, Molly Ringwald and David Thornton.
Plot
A magazine editor named Dorine, due to budget cuts, is forced to work fro ...
'' in 1997, starring Jeanne Tripplehorn, Molly Ringwald and Carol Kane. Dorine, played by Carol Kane, is a stand-in for Sherman. They have a shared interest in arranging bodies, like a puppeteer, in diorama-like scenes. According to author Dahlia Schweitzer Dahlia Schweitzer (born 1976) is a pop culture critic and writer. She is an associate professor in the film and media department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She is the author of various books and articles on film, televi ...
, ''Office Killer'' is full of unexpected characters and plot twists. Schweitzer considers the film to be a comedy, horror, melodrama, noir, feminist statement, and an art piece. The film got negative reviews. In a review for ''The New York Times'', art critic Roberta Smith states that the film lacks the artist's usual finesse and is a retrospective of her work - "a fascinating if lumpish bit of Shermaniana." Movie critic colleague to Roberta Smith, Stephen Holden, called the film "sadly inept."
Later, she had a cameo role in John Waters' film '' Pecker'', and also appeared in '' The Feature'' in 2008, starring ex-husband Michel Auder, which won a New Vision Award. Echoing similar grisly and gory elements as her ''Untitled Horror'' series, the film includes several artistically executed murder scenes. ''Office Killer'' grossed $37,446 and received generally poor reviews, which called the film "crude" and "laugh-free."
In the catalog essay by Philipp Kaiser for Sherman's 2016 exhibition at the Metro Pictures Gallery, he mentioned six short films that Sherman made while in college, and how they were the precursors that eventually led to ''Office Killer'' being created. The catalog also includes a conversation between Sherman and the director of the exhibit, Sofia Coppola, in which Sherman admits that she may star in an upcoming film project.
Exhibitions
Sherman's first solo show in New York was presented at a noncommercial space The Kitchen in 1980. When the Metro Pictures Gallery opened later that year, Sherman's photographs were the first show. "Untitled Film Stills" were shown first at the non-profit gallery Artists Space where Sherman was working as a receptionist. Her first solo exhibitions in France were presented by Galerie Chantal Crousel in Paris.
Sherman has since participated in many international events, including SITE Santa Fe (2004); the Venice Biennale (1982, 1995); and five Whitney Biennials. In addition to numerous group exhibitions, Sherman's work was the subject of solo exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum
The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. in Amsterdam (1982), Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1987), Kunsthalle Basel (1991), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (1995), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1998), the Serpentine Gallery
The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...
in London and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (2003), and Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin (2007), among others. Major traveling retrospectives of Sherman's work have been organized by the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen in Rotterdam (1996); the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1997), which was sponsored by Madonna
Madonna Louise Ciccone (; ; born August 16, 1958) is an American singer-songwriter and actress. Widely dubbed the " Queen of Pop", Madonna has been noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, a ...
; and Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark, and Jeu de Paume in Paris (2006–2007). In 2009, Sherman was included in the seminal show " The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
In 2012, the Museum of Modern Art mounted ''Cindy Sherman,'' a show that chronicled Sherman's work from the mid-1970s on and include more than 170 photographs. The exhibition travelled to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. In 2013, Sherman was invited to organize a show within that year's Venice Biennale.
In 2016, after a sabbatical
A sabbatical (from the Hebrew: (i.e., Sabbath); in Latin ; Greek: ) is a rest or break from work.
The concept of the sabbatical is based on the Biblical practice of ''shmita'' (sabbatical year), which is related to agriculture. According to ...
from her studio which was spent "coming to terms with health issues and getting older," Sherman produced and staged her first photo gallery in five years. The series, "The Imitation of Life," named after a 1959 melodrama by Douglas Sirk, tackles aging by presenting Sherman in highly stylized glamour portraits inspired by the divas of old Hollywood
Hollywood usually refers to:
* Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California
* Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States
Hollywood may also refer to:
Places United States
* Hollywood District (disambiguation)
* Hollywood, ...
, such as Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, and Ruby Keeler. The series was exhibited in 2016 at the Metro Pictures Gallery in New York City, and also at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles. In 2017 it was shown at the Spruth Magers gallery in Berlin, Germany
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constituent ...
, and at the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio.
In 2019, the National Portrait Gallery, London
The National Portrait Gallery (NPG) is an art gallery in London housing a collection of portraits of historically important and famous British people. It was arguably the first national public gallery dedicated to portraits in the world when it ...
, organised a major retrospective of Sherman's works from the mid-1970s to the present.
Collections
Works by Sherman are held in the following collections:
* Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
, Chicago, IL
* The Broad, Los Angeles, CA
* Jewish Museum (Manhattan), New York, NY
* Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Madison, WI
* Menil Collection, Houston, TX
* Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
* Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Build ...
, Houston, TX
* Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
* Tate Modern, Bankside, London
Feminism
In Sherman's ''Imitation of Life'' series of 2016 she poses, in vintage costume and theatrical makeup, as a variety of ageing actress-like women.
When writing about Sherman's "Film Stills" in the journal ''October'', the scholar Douglas Crimp states that Sherman's work is "a hybrid of photography and performance art that reveals femininity to be an effect of representation."
However, Sherman does not consider her work or herself to be feminist, stating "The work is what it is and hopefully it's seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I'm not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff."
Many scholars emphasize the relationship Cindy Sherman's work has with the concept of the gaze. In particular, scholars like Laura Mulvey have analyzed Sherman's ''Untitled'' series in relation to the male gaze. In a 1991 essay on Sherman, Mulvey states that ″the accouterments of the feminine struggle to conform to a facade of desirability haunt Sherman's iconography,″ which functions as a parody of different voyeurisms captured by the camera.
Others question whether this confrontation with the male gaze and a feminine struggle was an intentional consideration of Sherman's, and whether this intentionality is important in considering the feminist standpoint of Sherman's photography.
Sherman herself has identified an uncertainty toward the ''Untitled'' series' relationship with the male gaze. In a 1991 interview with David Brittain in ''Creative Camera,'' Sherman said that "I didn't really analyze it at the time as far as knowing that I was commenting upon some feminist issue. The theories weren't there at all... But now I can look back on some of them, and I think some of them are a little blatantly obvious, too much like the original pin-up pictures of those times, so I have mixed feelings about them now as a whole series."
In addition to questions of the gaze, Sherman's work is also given feminist analysis in the context of abjection
Abjection is a concept in critical theory referring to becoming cast off and separated from norms and rules, especially on the scale of society and morality. The term has been explored in post-structuralism as that which inherently disturbs conven ...
. Scholars like Hal Foster and Laura Mulvey interpret Sherman's use of the abject via the grotesque in 1980s projects like ''Vomit Pictures'' as de-fetishizing the female body.
Scholar Michele Meager interprets Sherman as having been "crowned a resistant celebrity" to feminist theory.
Awards and other recognition
*1981: Artist-in-residence, Light Work, Syracuse, New York
*1995: MacArthur Fellowship. This fellowship grants $500,000 over five years, no strings attached, to important scholars in a wide range of fields, to encourage their future creative work.
*1993: Larry Aldrich Foundation Award
*1997: Wolfgang Hahn Prize
*1999: Hasselblad Award
The Hasselblad Award (in full: Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography) is an award granted to "a photographer recognized for major achievements".
History
The award—and the Hasselblad Foundation—was set up from the estate ...
from the Hasselblad Foundation
The Hasselblad Foundation (in full: Erna and Victor Hasselblad Foundation), established in 1979 at the will of Victor Hasselblad, is a fully independent, not-for-profit foundation based at Götaplatsen in Gothenburg, Sweden. The main aim of the F ...
*2001: National Arts Award
*2005: Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Arts
*2003: American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award
*2009: Jewish Museum's Man Ray Award
*2010: Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Arts
The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpo ...
, London
*2012: Roswitha Haftmann Prize
*2012: Honored by actor Steve Martin at the 10th anniversary Gala in the Garden at the Hammer Museum
The Hammer Museum, which is affiliated with the University of California, Los Angeles, is an art museum and cultural center known for its artist-centric and progressive array of exhibitions and public programs. Founded in 1990 by the entreprene ...
*2012: Sherman was among the artists whose works were given as trophies to the filmmakers of winning pictures in the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival's jury competitions
*2013: Honorary doctorate degree from the Royal College of Art, London[Honorary Doctors](_blank)
Royal College of Art, London
*2017: Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum
*2020: Wolf Prize in Art
Art market
In 2010, Sherman's nearly six foot tall chromogenic color print '' Untitled#153'' (1985), featuring the artist as a mud-caked corpse, was sold by Phillips de Pury & Company for $2.7 million, near the $3 million high estimate. In 2011, a print of '' Untitled#96'' fetched $3.89 million at Christie's, making it the most expensive photograph at that time.
Sherman was represented by Metro Pictures for 40 years and also by Sprüth Magers before moving to Hauser & Wirth in 2021.
Influence on contemporary artists
Sherman's work is often credited as a major influence for contemporary portrait photographers. One such photographer is Ryan Trecartin
Ryan Trecartin (born 1981) is an American artist and filmmaker currently based in Athens, Ohio. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a BFA in 2004. Trecartin has since lived and worked in New Orleans, Los Angeles, Ph ...
, who manipulates themes of identity in his videos and photography. Her influence stretches to artists in other art mediums, including painter Lisa Yuskavage, visual artist Jillian Mayer
Jillian Mayer (born June 24, 1984) is a visual performance artist and filmmaker. She was born in Miami and is based there today. Mayer's video works and performances have been displayed at galleries and museums internationally and film festivals ...
, and performance artist Tracey Ullman.
In April 2014, actor and artist James Franco exhibited a series of photographs at the Pace Gallery called ''New Film Stills'', in which Franco restaged twenty-nine images from Sherman's ''Untitled Film Stills''. The exhibit garnered mainly negative reviews, calling Franco's appropriations 'sophomoric,' 'sexist,' and embarrassingly clueless.'
Personal life
Sherman lived with artist Robert Longo, from 1974 to 1980. She married director Michel Auder in 1984, making her stepmother to Auder's daughter, Alexandra, and her half-sister Gaby Hoffmann. They divorced in 1999. From 2007 to 2011, she had a relationship with the artist David Byrne
David Byrne (; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, writer, music theorist, visual artist and filmmaker. He was a founding member and the principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of ...
.
Between 1991 and 2005,[William Neuman (September 11, 2005)]
A SoHo Loft for Moe the Bartender
'' The New York Times''. Sherman lived in a fifth-floor co-op loft at 84 Mercer Street in Manhattan's Soho neighborhood; she later sold it to actor Hank Azaria. She bought two floors in a 10-story condo building overlooking the Hudson River in West Soho, and currently uses one as her apartment and the other as her studio and office.
For many years, Sherman spent her summers in the Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas ...
.[ Bob Colacello (January 2000)]
Studios by the Sea
'' Vanity Fair''. In 2000, she bought songwriter Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch (June 2, 1944 – August 6, 2012) was an American composer and conductor. Hamlisch was one of only seventeen people to win Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. This collection of all four is referred to as an " EGOT ...
's 4,200-square-foot house on 0.4 acre in Sag Harbor for $1.5 million. She later acquired a 19th-century home on a ten-acre waterfront property on Accabonac Harbor in East Hampton, New York.
Sherman has expressed contempt for social media platforms, calling them "so vulgar." However, she maintains an active Instagram
Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...
account featuring her selfies.
Industry and advocacy work
Sherman serves on the artistic advisory committee of the New York City-based Stephen Petronio Company and on the Artists Committee of the Americans for the Arts. Along with David Byrne, she was a member of Portugal's Estoril Film Festival
The Lisbon & Estoril Film Festival (LEFFEST), formerly known as Estoril Film Festival, (also known as Lisbon & Sintra Film Festival) is an annual international film festival held in November in Estoril, on the Portuguese Riviera. Establishe ...
's jury in 2009.
In 2012, she joined Yoko Ono and nearly 150 fellow artists in the founding of Artists Against Fracking Artists Against Fracking is an association of artists started by Yoko Ono and her son, Sean Lennon, also including Mark Ruffalo, Robert de Niro, Paul McCartney, Lady Gaga and Deepak Chopra.
History
As of August 2012, 180 artists were part of the ...
, a group in opposition to hydraulic fracturing
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...
to remove gas from underground deposits.
Controversy
Sherman has been criticized for donning blackface in her early ''Bus Riders'' series (1976–2000). The American theatre critic Margo Jefferson has written, " he African-American figuresall have nearly the same features, too, while Ms. Sherman is able to give the white characters she impersonates a real range of skin tones and facial features. This didn't look like irony to me. It looked like a stale visual myth that was still in good working order."
Books
* ''Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman''. MIT Press, 1999. Edited by Shelley Rice. .
* ''Essential, The: Cindy Sherman''. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1999. .
* ''Cindy Sherman: Retrospective (Paperback)''. Thames & Hudson
Thames & Hudson (sometimes T&H for brevity) is a publisher of illustrated books in all visually creative categories: art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, film, and the performing arts. It also publishes books on archaeology, history, ...
, 2000. By Amanda Cruz and Elizabeth A. T. Smith
Elizabeth A. T. Smith (born 1958) is an American art historian, museum curator, writer, and presently the executive director of the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation. She has formerly held positions as a curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Conte ...
. .
* ''In Real Life: Six Women Photographers''. Holiday House, 2000. By Leslie Sills, et al. .
* ''Early Work of Cindy Sherman''. Glenn Horowitz Bookseller, 2001 .
* ''Cindy Sherman: Photographic Works 1975-1995 (Paperback)''. Schirmer/Mosel, 2002. By Elisabeth Bronfen, et al. .
* ''Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills''. Museum of Modern Art, 2003. .
* ''Cindy Sherman: Centerfolds''. Skarstedt Fine Art, 2004. .
* ''Cindy Sherman: Working Girl''. St. Louis, Missouri: Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, 2006. .
* ''Cindy Sherman.'' The MIT Press, 2006. Edited by Johanna Burton. .
* ''Cindy Sherman: A Play of Selves''. Hatje Cantz
Hatje Cantz Verlag (English: Hatje Cantz Publishing) is a German book publisher specialising in photography, art, architecture and design. It was established in 1945 by Gerd Hatje[Dahlia Schweitzer Dahlia Schweitzer (born 1976) is a pop culture critic and writer. She is an associate professor in the film and media department at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City. She is the author of various books and articles on film, televi ...]
. .
Film and video
* ''Cindy Sherman ideorecording: Transformations.'' by Paul Tschinkel; Marc H Miller; Sarah Berry; Stan Harrison; Cindy Sherman; Helen Winer; Peter Schjeldahl; Inner-Tube Video. 2002, 28 minutes, Color. NY: Inner-Tube Video.
* In 2009, Paul Hasegawa-Overacker and Tom Donahue completed a feature documentary, ''Guest of Cindy Sherman,'' about the former's relationship with Sherman. She was initially supportive, but later opposed the project.PAPERMAG: WORD UP!: Cindy Sherman Speaks
See also
*
Blackface in contemporary art
*
Laurel Nakadate
Laurel Nakadate (born 1975) is an American feminist video artist, filmmaker, and photographer. She is based in New York City.
Biography
Laurel Nakadate was born 1975 in Austin, Texas and raised in Ames, Iowa.
Nakadate graduated with a Bachelor ...
*
List of most expensive photographs
*
Nikki S. Lee
Nikki Seung-hee Lee (이승희, born 1970) is a South Korea-born visual artist, living in New York City and Seoul, that works with photography and film.
Early life and education
Lee was born in Geochang, South Korea. During her childhood, Lee ...
References
External links
Works by Cindy Sherman in the collection ofthe Museum of Modern Art
Video on ''Untitled Film Stills'' and mass media representations
Further reading
* Michael Kelly, "Danto and Krauss on Cindy Sherman". In: M. A. Holly & K. Moxey (eds.), ''Art History, Aesthetics, Visual Studies''. Massachusetts:
Clark Art Institute, 2002.
* Hoban, Phoebe
"The Cindy Sherman Effect" Artnews.com. 2012.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sherman, Cindy
1954 births
Living people
American women film directors
Conceptual photographers
American portrait photographers
MacArthur Fellows
Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
Buffalo State College alumni
People from Glen Ridge, New Jersey
People from East Hampton (town), New York
People from Sag Harbor, New York
20th-century American photographers
21st-century American photographers
Honorary Members of the Royal Academy
Film directors from New Jersey
Film directors from New York (state)
People from SoHo, Manhattan
20th-century American women photographers
21st-century American women photographers
Postmodern artists