Cindy Sherman
Our last film photography piece this year is ‘Untitled Film Stills’ by Cindy Sherman.
Raised in Long Island, Cindy was born the to a family of five in Glenridge, New Jersey. In 1974, she enrolled in Buffalo University College to study painting. However, she found an innate unoriginality in her painting, and would often just be “meticulously copying other art”. She abandoned it and took up photography, using her camera to put her time into developing a conceptual idea. Shortly after graduating, she would move back to New York City and translate this thinking into a series of black and white photographs that would become her opus magnum.
‘Untitled Film Stills’ is made up of seventy photographs, sixty-nine taken from 1977 to 1980, plus one added later; that explore stereotypical female roles in scenes inspired by 1950s and ’60s Hollywood, film noir, B movies, and European art-house films. Fascinated by costume and makeup and the role it played in constructing identity, she placed herself as the subject of the images and began to explore the gender notions that come into play when portraying women on a screen.
Drawing inspiration from films she’d watched, she creates a narrative of cinematic characters ranging from a hitchhiker, cowgirl, coquette, and lonely housewife. While she is the common subject of all the images, each female archetypal figure she represents exists in their own different world. Even as they relate to their film inspiration, the interpretation of what really goes on is left to the viewer. While there are traces of Hitchcock, Brigette Bardot, François Truffaut, and Monica Vitti, Cindy elevates their signature style and roles to create something that seems familiar but hides a lot more nuance.
The images mimic photographs shot on film sets and then used to promote movies, with the intention to make them seem “cheap and trashy.” Like an elaborate parody, Cindy plays into these clichés to offer a critique into the way visual culture represents women, and how their narratives are reduced to a copycat simplicity. Through her images she creates a sense of unease and independence that shows the character rising from the film’s theatricality.
Sources
https://www.dazeddigital.com/art-photography/article/45267/1/the-films-that-influenced-cindy-shermans-untitled-film-stills-series
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/56520?artist_id=5392&page=1&sov_referrer=artist
https://magazine.artland.com/portraits-of-america-cindy-shermans-untitled-film-stills/
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-artwork-changed-life-cindy-shermans-untitled-film-stills
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sherman-untitled-film-still-48-p1151