Designer Research Paper: Cindy Sherman

Towards the end of the 1960s, there was a rise in Anti-war protests; and many marginalized groups were protesting and for their rights. Civil, queer, and gender rights movements were happening across the world and these movements inspired feminist artists to create work showing the female perspective. Feminist artists wanted to show women as the subject in an art piece instead of the object; previously women featured in art were usually meant to just be “pretty” and “aesthetically pleasing.” While feminist artists showed women as much more complex than what was shown before; one of these feminist artists is Cindy Sherman. Sherman used the medium of photography “in order to explore a wide range of common female social roles or personas.” Her work shows and critiques how women are portrayed in the media, and why as an audience; we should be more critical of the images we see regularly.

In 1972, Sherman attended Buffalo State College as a visual arts student. She began to experiment with concepts that would later become staples of her work; such as dressing up as different characters and shooting with black and white 35mm film. Photography became Sherman’s main focus for the rest of the time she was in college; as she began to feel painting was very limiting as a medium. Even though she eventually switched majors to photography she actually had to retake her freshman photography course. During the second time she took the class, her professor was Barbara Jo Revelle; who Sherman credits as “introducing her to conceptual art and other contemporary forms.” Also while attending college, Sherman met the artist Robert Longo; he would encourage her to take photos while she was getting ready for college parties, or as he would refer to it “dolling up.” This idea of her taking pictures of herself “dolling up” would later inspire the majority of her work and her ideology behind it. One of Sherman’s early projects which was pretty much the blueprint for her later projects was called Bus Riders (1976-2000). This series showed Sherman dressed as many different people she observed on New York’s public transportation. She used make-up, costumes, and props to transform herself into each “character.” Although Bus Riders showed Sherman’s talent to be both behind and in front of the camera; Sherman’s ignorance was also highlighted. Sherman was rightfully criticized for her use of “black face” in this series when it was published in 2000 (24 years after they were shot). African-American theatre critique Margo Jefferson wrote “[The African-American figures] all 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.”

During the late 1970s, was when Sherman began shooting what would be her most notable work: Untitled Film Stills. The artist posed as many different characters or roles in different settings, having a feeling of Film Noir movies of the 1940s, 50s, and 60s. Recreating the looks of a stereotypical housewife to a working girl, she would embody these characters using makeup, costumes, and different settings as she did in her previous work. What made these images unique is that she would give these characters enough detail for the viewer to recognize who she was impersonating, but she didn’t try to become a specific character from a specific film; this left enough room for the character to be ambiguous and let the audience come to there own interpretations of who she was. Sherman also didn’t give the images’ titles to keep them ambiguous, The way Sherman is able to transform herself into many different people through the use of make-up and clothing was also an interesting commentary on how a woman can use make-up as a form of expression. “Putting on makeup is not meant just to define a woman but rather, to determine what kind of a woman she really is. Is she a glittery lip gloss type of girl, or a lipstick kind of girl? Is she the type of woman who wears too much makeup, or the type that favors a bare or natural face? Therefore, it is a misnomer to say that a woman wears makeup to look beautiful; instead, women wear makeup to tell the world who they are.” Sherman began creating these photos in 1977 and was exclusively shooting them in black and white film, but in the 80s she began to shoot in color film, this gave the images a completely different feeling in comparison to the black and white film stills. The color images felt like they were from an 80s slasher film and Sherman even recreated a final girl-type character for one of the photos. Sherman continued to create looks and images for this series until 2008. In 1980, Sherman’s Untitled Film Still series was first shown at the Artists Space gallery where she worked as a receptionist.

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #23 (1978)

Cindy Sherman Untitled Film Still #96 (1981)

During the early 2000s, Sherman produced another series called the Clowns. Sherman developed this concept after being asked by British Vogue to be a guest editor/ collaborator on their latest issue in June of 2003. She came up with the idea to create clown portraits meant to be featured in the fashion section, “Sherman’s clown portraits would become a way of exploring the boundaries between clothing and costumery. Intrigued by the apparent dichotomy of the clowns’ persona and any sense of the interior, or real self, Sherman explores the society of difference in this subtly disparate group of facades.” While this work again played with many of the visual elements that have become trademarks to Sherman’s work, it veered away from her previous work in many ways as well. This was one of the first projects where Sherman used computer manipulation to help in creating the images; by distorting and warping the background and adding multiple clowns in an image. Sherman stepped out of her comfort zone for this project not only with the techniques used but also with the make-up and clothing. Again, Sherman was used to recreating people from everyday life, and even in her Untitled Film Stills series, she was still creating characters based on recognizable characters. Sherman really experimented with strange and almost uncomfortable-looking clown makeup, using facial prosthetics, and colorful wigs for these looks. The series was exhibited in January of 2005 at the Berlin gallery the Sprüth Magers.

Cindy Sherman Untitled #421 (2004)

Work Cited:

“Cindy Sherman Photography, Bio, Ideas.” The Art Story, https://www.theartstory.org/artist/sherman-cindy/.
Freeman, Anna. “Your Ultimate Guide to Cindy Sherman.” Dazed, 3 Aug. 2016, https://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/32147/1/your-ultimate-guide-to-cindy-sherman.
“Cindy Sherman: Early Works.” AnOther, 14 Jan. 2013, https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/2451/cindy-sherman-early-works.
“Cindy Sherman – Bio: The Broad.” Bio | The Broad, https://www.thebroad.org/art/cindy-sherman.
“Cindy Sherman: Clowning around and Socialite Selfies – in Pictures.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 30 May 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/may/30/cindy-sherman-clowning-around-and-socialite-selfies-in-pictures.
“Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #32. 1979: MOMA.” The Museum of Modern Art, www.moma.org/collection/works/56701.
Dazed. “Iggy Pop, Cindy Sherman, and Derek Ridgers: Inside a Secondhand Book Mecca.” Dazed, 2 May 2019, www.dazeddigital.com/fashion/article/44289/1/iggy-pop-derek-ridgers-secondhand-books-oxfambooksn1-charity-shop-london.
“Cindy Sherman – Clowns – Munich.” Sprüth Magers, 1 June 2020, spruethmagers.com/exhibitions/cindy-sherman-clowns-munich/.