CINDY SHERMAN
UNTITLED FILM STILLS
In this photograph, Sherman plays a vulnerable schoolgirl, thrown to the floor with wet hair and a desperate expression. Her eyes are wide, looking past the frame to behind the viewer, as though something alarming lurks there.
She has visible bags and a subtle redness around her eyes that is likely done with make-up, this gives a tiredness to her expression, potentially suggesting a previous chase/struggle of some sort that has exhausted her either emotionally and or physically. Her lips are chapped which adds to the sense of distress, as this is clearly a girl who looks after herself in her normal life- her nails are long and neatly filed- contrasting the rest of the dishevelled appearance, and so suggesting that her current physical state is unusual for her, and she is in a state of angst.
The surrounding air is dark, creating a sense of mystery and unease, whilst her face is lit from above to the right, casting a dramatic Rembrandt shadow across her face. With the camera angled from above, the Sherman is framed as vulnerable and powerless to whatever force evokes her despair. The viewer is above her.
Cindy Sherman (1954) is an American photographer who works in self-portraits, depicting herself in many different contexts and as various imagined characters.
For over forty years, Cindy Sherman has explored identity in relation to celebrities, gender and media portrayal. She was a majorly influential photographer in the "pictures generation"- a group who retaliated to the rise of mass media, consumerism, etcetera, with heavy criticism by appropriating media from any source possible: film, television, marketing..
She is most famous for her work experimenting with identity. In particular, her 1977-80 series, "Untitled Film Stills", one of her first large projects. This involved Sherman reenacting typical stills from B-side movies, taking on stereotyped roles of female characters such as the blunted temptress, the abandoned lover, the unhappy housewife, and the vulnerable virgin. In these images, Sherman dons guises and costumes, taking her photos in public settings or in her studio. The settings are purposefully chosen to resemble the movie scenes that she stereotypes.
Sherman used "cinematic conventions", consisting of dramatic angles and stares
Sherman used cinematic conventions to structure these photographs: they recall the film stills used to promote movies, from which the series takes its title. The 70 Film Stills immediately became flashpoints for conversations about feminism, postmodernism, and representation, and they remain her best-known works.
Sherman has continued to transform herself, displaying the diversity of human types and stereotypes in her images. She often works in series, improvising on themes such as centerfolds (1981) and society portraits (2008). Untitled #216, from her history portraits (1981), exemplifies her use of theatrical effects to embody different roles and her lack of attempt to hide her efforts: often her wigs are slipping off, her prosthetics are peeling away, and her makeup is poorly blended. She highlights the artificiality of these fabrications, a metaphor for the artificiality of all identity construction.
While she sometimes portrays glamorous characters, Sherman has always been more interested in the grotesque. In the 1980s and 1990s, series such as the disasters (1986–89) and the sex pictures (1992) confronted viewers with the strange and ugly aspects of humanity in explicit, visceral images. “I’m disgusted with how people get themselves to look beautiful; I’m much more fascinated with the other side,”2 she said in 1986. At the time, images of ailing bodies were painfully on view in the news during the AIDS crisis; these added poignancy to her investigation of the grotesque and of various types of violence that could be done to the body. In these series and throughout all of her work, Sherman subverts the visual shorthand we use to classify the world around us, drawing attention to the artificiality and ambiguity of these stereotypes and undermining their reliability for understanding a much more complicated reality.
Pulling inspiration from pop culture imagery, film, fashion and television, the artist challenged the restrictive roles of women in the media and the perpetual objectification of female sexuality. She’s often hailed as a feminist, postmodernist, post-structuralist, and many other labels, but Sherman’s resistance to categorisation has often left somewhat of a question mark over her work.
“It’s amusing how far someone can stretch my intentions and make a concept that fits their theories” – Cindy Sherman
In this image, Sherman portrays herself as an independent heroine, her scarf billowing over her shoulder like a cape, evoking connotations of superheroes. She throws a powerful gaze up to the left corner, eyes slightly squinted as though deep in thought. What Sherman looks at is out of frame; this leaves the viewer to wonder what is so thought-provoking.
The photo is taken from below, which gives an impression of power, as we look up Sherman's arm, up to her eyes. The viewer is positioned below her, establishing the woman as an independent character.
