Artist Reference – Cindy Sherman

‘Untitled Film Still #35’ Cindy Sherman, 1979

Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, United States, on January 19, 1954, and is a photographer. Sherman’s work consists primarily of photos which depict herself in many different contexts and as various different imagined characters. Sherman usually inserts herself into a dialogue about stereotypical portrayals of women in her photographs, which resemble scenes from 1950s and 1960s films.

Sherman has played with the visual and cultural codes of gender and photography. Shortly after moving to New York, she produced her Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980) starting when she was 23, where she dressed up as imaginary characters and photographed herself in various settings. These around 70 Film Stills immediately became a point of discussion for feminism, postmodernism, and representation, and still remain Sherman’s best-known works.

The collection of photographs named ‘Untitled Film Stills’ which Cindy Sherman produced in the 1970s and 1980s seem to deliberately rely on caricatures of female subjects in movies, staging these photographs by taking on the role of the actress, instead of adopting a performative approach in the creation of her works. She stated, ‘Once I set up, the camera starts clicking, then I just start to move and watch how I move in the mirror. It’s not like I’m method acting or anything. I don’t feel that I am that person. I may be thinking about a certain story or situation, but I don’t become her. There’s this distance. The image in the mirror becomes her—the image the camera gets on the film. And the one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.’ (C. Sherman, quoted in Ibid., p. 23).


Photo Analysis – ‘Untitled Film Still #15’ Cindy Sherman, 1978

This is a film photograph, ‘Untitled Film Still #15’ taken by Cindy Sherman in 1978 and is featured in her collection of photographs ‘Untitled Film Stills’ (1977-1980).

There is one subject in this photograph, Sherman herself, and the focal point appears to be Sherman – who is presented in the midground sat upon a windowsill, looking out of it, the lighting is natural light from the window. This natural lighting creates a distinct contrast between the lighting and shadows, further emphasising this subject and establishing this choice to position herself as the main subject and focal point within the mise-en-scène. This composition seems to be deliberately contemplated by Sherman, as the photograph follows the rule of thirds, as she sits between both vertical lines. Filling the otherwise empty space in the midground/background on the left of the frame there is a chair facing away from the window. Within this composition, she has posed herself dressed as a feminine stereotype and representation within film and popular culture, emphasising the artifice of the scene, aiming to address how she perceives the projective eye which invokes a violent penetrative gaze on women during the 1970s and 1980s for the viewer, rather than expressing her own identity.

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