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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'', 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 film An art film (or arthouse film) is typically an independent film, aimed at a niche market rather than a mass market audience. It is "intended to be a serious, artistic work, often experimental and not designed for mass appeal", "made primarily f ...
s 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 Glen Ridge is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Essex County, New Jersey, Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough’s population was 7,802, reflecting an increase of 275 (+3.7%) from the 2 ...
, 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 The Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation, later Grumman Aerospace Corporation, was a 20th century American producer of military and civilian aircraft. Founded on December 6, 1929, by Leroy Grumman and his business partners, it merged in 199 ...
. Her mother taught reading to children with learning difficulties.Simon Hattenstone (January 15, 2011)
Sherman: Me, myself and I
''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''.
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 The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...
department at
Buffalo State College The State University of New York College at Buffalo (colloquially referred to as Buffalo State College, SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo State, or simply Buff State) is a public college in Buffalo, New York. It is part of the State University of Ne ...
, 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 Robert Longo (born 1953) is an American artist, filmmaker, photographer and musician. Longo became first well known in the 1980s for his ''Men in the Cities'' drawing and print series, which depict sharply dressed men and women writhing in cont ...
, 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 Charles Clough may refer to: * Charles Clough (artist) (born 1951), American painter * Charles Clough (geologist) Charles Thomas Clough MA, LLD, FGS, FRSE (23 December 1852 – 27 August 1916) was a prominent British geologist and mapmaker. Th ...
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, th ...
, 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, literature ...
, 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 Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...
, 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 ge ...
, in nearby Lewiston, N.Y.
G. Roger Denson G. Roger Denson (born 1956) is an American journalist, cultural and art critic, theoretician, novelist, and curator. He is a regular contributor to ''The Huffington Post'', his writings have also appeared in such international publications as '' Ar ...
(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 Hannah Wilke (born Arlene Hannah Butter; March 7, 1940 – January 28, 1993) was an American painter, sculptor, photographer, video artist and performance artist. Wilke's work is known for exploring issues of feminism, sexuality and femininity. B ...
,
Eleanor Antin Eleanor Antin (née Fineman; February 27, 1935) is an American performance artist, film-maker, installation artist, conceptual artist and feminist artist. Early life and education Eleanor Fineman was born in the Bronx on February 27, 1935. Her p ...
, 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, racial ...
. Along with artists like Laurie Simmons,
Louise Lawler Louise Lawler (born 1947) is a U.S. artist and photographer living in Brooklyn, New York.Louise Lawler ...
, and
Barbara Kruger Barbara Kruger (born January 26, 1945) is an American conceptual artist and collagist associated with the Pictures Generation. She is most known for her collage style that consists of black-and-white photographs, overlaid with declarative captio ...
, Sherman is considered to be part of the
Pictures Generation ''The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984'' was an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in New York City that ran from April 29 – August 2, 2009. The exhibition took its name from ''Pictures'', a 1977 group show organized by art h ...
.


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'' (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 Robert Longo (born 1953) is an American artist, filmmaker, photographer and musician. Longo became first well known in the 1980s for his ''Men in the Cities'' drawing and print series, which depict sharply dressed men and women writhing in cont ...
'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 ''Two Women'' ( it, La ciociara , rough literal translation "The Woman from Ciociaria") is a 1960 war drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica from a screenplay by Cesare Zavattini and De Sica, based on the novel of the same name by Alberto ...
''. (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 fatherSimon 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, Nik ...
''.
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
MoMA.
The
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
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 Metro Pictures was a New York City art gallery founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring (previously of Leo Castelli Gallery), and Helene Winer (previously of Artists Space). It was located in SoHo until 1995 when it moved to Chelsea. The gallery close ...
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 ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notabl ...
'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 A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. Pr ...
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 The Corcoran Gallery of Art was an art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, that is now the location of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, a part of the George Washington University. Overview The Corcoran School of the Arts & Design ...
, as well as the way
Jeff Koons Jeffrey Lynn Koons (; born January 21, 1955) is an American artist recognized for his work dealing with popular culture and his sculptures depicting everyday objects, including balloon animals produced in stainless steel with mirror- finish su ...
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 ''In flagrante delicto'' (Latin for "in blazing offence") or sometimes simply ''in flagrante'' ("in blazing") is a legal term used to indicate that a criminal has been caught in the act of committing an offence (compare ). The colloquial "caught ...
. 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 In medicine, a prosthesis (plural: prostheses; from grc, πρόσθεσις, prósthesis, addition, application, attachment), or a prosthetic implant, is an artificial device that replaces a missing body part, which may be lost through trau ...
limbs and
mannequin A mannequin (also called a dummy, lay figure, or dress form) is a doll, often articulated, used by artists, tailors, dressmakers, window dressers and others, especially to display or fit clothing and show off different fabrics and textiles. Pr ...
s to create her ''Sex Pictures'' series (1992).
Hal Foster Harold Rudolf Foster, FRSA (August 16, 1892 – July 25, 1982) was a Canadian-American comic strip artist and writer best known as the creator of the comic strip '' Prince Valiant''. His drawing style is noted for its high level of draftsmanship ...
, 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 Jerry Saltz (born February 19, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois) is an American art critic. Since 2006, he has been senior art critic and columnist for '' New York'' magazine. Formerly the senior art critic for ''The Village Voice'', he received the Pu ...
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 Cathy Horyn (born September 11, 1956) is an American fashion critic and journalist who worked for ''The New York Times'' from 1998 until 2014 where she had the highly noted and provocative blo''On The Runway'' In 2015, she was appointed critic- ...
(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'' 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 Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads may ...
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 Comme des Garçons (also known as CDG) is a Japanese fashion label based in Paris that was created and led by Rei Kawakubo. Its French flagship store is located in Paris. This label owns a world-wide store chain featuring various lines of pro ...
'' for the brand's autumn/winter 1994–95 collections in collaboration with
Rei Kawakubo (b. 1942) is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. She is the founder of Comme des Garçons and Dover Street Market. In recognition of the notable design contributions of Kawakubo, an exhibition of her designs entitled '' Rei ...
. In 2006, she created a series of fashion advertisements for designer Marc Jacobs. The advertisements themselves were photographed by
Juergen Teller Juergen Teller (born 28 January 1964) is a German fine-art and fashion photographer. He was awarded the Citibank Prize for Photography in 2003 and received the Special Presentation International Center of Photography Infinity Award in 2018. Maj ...
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 Anna Hu (; born 1977) is a Taiwanese-American jewelry designer. Early life Anna Hu was born in Tainan in 1977, and raised between Tainan and New York City. Both her parents worked in jewelry wholesale, her father specialized in gemstones while ...
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'' in 1997, starring
Jeanne Tripplehorn Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn (born June 10, 1963) is an American actress. She began her career on stage, acting in several plays throughout the early 1990s, including Anton Chekhov's '' Three Sisters'' on Broadway. Her film career began with the ro ...
,
Molly Ringwald Molly Kathleen Ringwald (born February 18, 1968) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and author. She was cast in her first major role as Molly in the NBC sitcom '' The Facts of Life'' (1979–80) after a casting director saw her playing an o ...
and
Carol Kane Carolyn Laurie Kane (born June 18, 1952) is an American actress. She became known in the 1970s and 1980s in films such as '' Hester Street'' (for which she received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress), ''Dog Day Afternoon'', ''Annie ...
. 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, ''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 Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied at ...
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 A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...
in
John Waters John Samuel Waters Jr. (born April 22, 1946) is an American filmmaker, writer, actor, and artist. He rose to fame in the early 1970s for his Cinema of Transgression, transgressive cult films, including ''Multiple Maniacs'' (1970), ''Pink Flamin ...
' film '' Pecker'', and also appeared in ''
The Feature ''The Feature'' is a collaboration between filmmakers Michel Auder and Andrew Neel. Using a collection of videos that Auder had created over the previous 40 years, in combination with original present-day footage of Auder shot by Neel, the two f ...
'' in 2008, starring ex-husband
Michel Auder Michel may refer to: * Michel (name), a given name or surname of French origin (and list of people with the name) * Míchel (nickname), a nickname (a list of people with the nickname, mainly Spanish footballers) * Míchel (footballer, born 1963), ...
, 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 Sofia Carmina Coppola (; born May 14, 1971) is an American filmmaker and actress. The youngest child and only daughter of filmmakers Eleanor Coppola, Eleanor and Francis Ford Coppola, she made her film debut as an infant in her father's acclaimed ...
, 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 The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...
in 1980. When the
Metro Pictures Gallery Metro Pictures was a New York City art gallery founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring (previously of Leo Castelli Gallery), and Helene Winer (previously of Artists Space). It was located in SoHo until 1995 when it moved to Chelsea. The gallery close ...
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 SITE Santa Fe (often referred to simply as SITE) is a nonprofit contemporary arts organization based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Since its founding in 1995, SITE Santa Fe has presented 11 biennials, more than 90 contemporary art exhibitions, and w ...
(2004); the
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
(1982, 1995); and five
Whitney Biennial The Whitney Biennial is a biennial exhibition of contemporary American art, typically by young and lesser known artists, on display at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, United States. The event began as an annual exhibition in ...
s. 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 The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
in New York (1987),
Kunsthalle Basel Kunsthalle Basel is a contemporary art gallery in Basel, Switzerland. As Switzerland's oldest and still most active institution for contemporary art, Kunsthalle Basel forms a vital part of Basel's cultural centre and is located next to the city's ...
(1991),
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...
in Washington, D.C. (1995), the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
(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 The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art is part of the National Galleries of Scotland, which are based in Edinburgh, Scotland. The National Gallery of Modern Art houses the collection of modern and contemporary art dating from about 1900 to th ...
(2003), and
Martin-Gropius-Bau Martin-Gropius-Bau, commonly known as Gropius Bau, is an important exhibition building in Berlin, Germany. Originally a museum of applied arts, the building has been a listed historical monument since 1966. It is located at 7 Niederkirchnerstra ...
in Berlin (2007), among others. Major traveling retrospectives of Sherman's work have been organized by the
Museum Boymans-van Beuningen Municipal Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen () is an art museum in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. The name of the museum is derived from the two most important collectors of Frans Jacob Otto Boijmans and Daniël George van Beuningen. It is located at ...
in Rotterdam (1996); the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's o ...
and the
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
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 The Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB) presents temporary exhibitions of international contemporary art in Bregenz, Vorarlberg (Austria). History Commissioned by the State of Vorarlberg and designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, the Kunsthaus B ...
, Austria, Louisiana Museum for Moderne Kunst, Denmark, and
Jeu de Paume ''Jeu de paume'' (, ; originally spelled ; ), nowadays known as real tennis, (US) court tennis or (in France) ''courte paume'', is a ball-and-court game that originated in France. It was an indoor precursor of tennis played without racquets, a ...
in Paris (2006–2007). In 2009, Sherman was included in the seminal show "
The Pictures Generation ''The Pictures Generation, 1974–1984'' was an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) in New York City that ran from April 29 – August 2, 2009. The exhibition took its name from ''Pictures'', a 1977 group show organized by art h ...
, 1974–1984" at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
. 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 The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
and the
Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, t ...
in Minneapolis. In 2013, Sherman was invited to organize a show within that year's
Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...
. 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 Douglas Sirk (born Hans Detlef Sierck; 26 April 1897 – 14 January 1987) was a German film director best known for his work in Hollywood melodramas of the 1950s. Sirk started his career in Germany as a stage and screen director, but he left for ...
, tackles aging by presenting Sherman in highly stylized glamour portraits inspired by the divas of old Hollywood, such as
Gloria Swanson Gloria May Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress and producer. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most f ...
,
Mary Pickford Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...
, and
Ruby Keeler Ethel Ruby Keeler (August 25, 1909 – February 28, 1993) was an American actress, dancer, and singer who was paired on-screen with Dick Powell in a string of successful early musicals at Warner Bros., particularly ''42nd Street (film), 42nd Str ...
. The series was exhibited in 2016 at the
Metro Pictures Gallery Metro Pictures was a New York City art gallery founded in 1980 by Janelle Reiring (previously of Leo Castelli Gallery), and Helene Winer (previously of Artists Space). It was located in SoHo until 1995 when it moved to Chelsea. The gallery close ...
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, 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, 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 The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, New York, NY * Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX *
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, 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. 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 Foundation#MacArthur Fellowship, 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: Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Larry Aldrich Foundation Award *1997: Museum Ludwig, Wolfgang Hahn Prize *1999: Hasselblad Award from the Hasselblad Foundation *2001: National Arts Awards, National Arts Award *2005: Guild Hall Academy of the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award for Visual Arts *2003: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences Award *2009: Jewish Museum (New York), Jewish Museum's Man Ray Award *2010: Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, London *2012: Roswitha Haftmann Prize *2012: Honored by actor Steve Martin at the 10th anniversary Gala in the Garden at the Hammer Museum *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, LondonHonorary Doctors
Royal College of Art, London
*2017: Induction into the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum *2020: Wolf Prize in Arts, Wolf Prize in Art


Art market

In 2010, Sherman's nearly six foot tall chromogenic color print ''Untitled 153, Untitled#153'' (1985), featuring the artist as a mud-caked corpse, was sold by Phillips (auctioneers), Phillips de Pury & Company for $2.7 million, near the $3 million high estimate. In 2011, a print of ''Untitled 96, 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, 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, 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 Robert Longo (born 1953) is an American artist, filmmaker, photographer and musician. Longo became first well known in the 1980s for his ''Men in the Cities'' drawing and print series, which depict sharply dressed men and women writhing in cont ...
, from 1974 to 1980. She married director
Michel Auder Michel may refer to: * Michel (name), a given name or surname of French origin (and list of people with the name) * Míchel (nickname), a nickname (a list of people with the nickname, mainly Spanish footballers) * Míchel (footballer, born 1963), ...
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. 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 Cooperative housing, co-op loft at 84 Mercer Street in Manhattan's Soho (Manhattan), 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 SoHo, Manhattan, 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.Bob Colacello (January 2000)
Studios by the Sea
''Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair''.
In 2000, she bought songwriter Marvin Hamlisch'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 account featuring her selfies.


Industry and advocacy work

Sherman serves on the artistic advisory committee of the New York City-based Stephen Petronio, 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's jury in 2009. In 2012, she joined Yoko Ono and nearly 150 fellow artists in the founding of Artists Against Fracking, a group in opposition to hydraulic fracturing 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, "[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."


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, 2000. By Amanda Cruz and Elizabeth A. T. Smith. . * ''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 Verlag, Hatje Cantz, 2007. . * ''Cindy Sherman.'' Museum of Modern Art, 2012. . * ''Cindy Sherman: Untitled Horrors''. Hatje Cantz, 2013. . * ''Cindy Sherman's Office Killer: Another Kind of Monster''. Intellect Books, 2014. By Dahlia Schweitzer. .


Film and video

* ''Cindy Sherman [videorecording] : 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 * List of most expensive photographs * Nikki S. Lee


References


External links


Works by Cindy Sherman in the collection of
the 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