She is among the most significant artists of the Pictures Generation, responding to the mass media landscape surrounding them with both humor and criticism, appropriating images from advertising.
At first painting in a super-realist style in art school during the aftermath of American Feminism, Sherman turned to photography toward the end of the 1970s in order to explore a wide range of common female social roles, or personas.
What was the purpose of Cindy Sherman’s photography? To portray the various roles and identities of herself and other modern women. Influenced by a previous generation of performance artists, Sherman developed a fascination for disguise, a fascination that had been with her since childhood, now in encounter with her own camera.
She meticulously constructs her photographs, controlling every aspect of the image, including makeup, costumes, lighting, and settings. Through her elaborate and often satirical transformations, Sherman encourages viewers to question societal norms and expectations, particularly those imposed on women.
Cindy Sherman’s work is characterized by her use of self-portraiture to create fictional characters and explore themes such as identity, representation, and the construction of femininity.
Image Analysis
Shows an photo of a woman dressed in a type of evening and seems to going somewhere important. Likely to have a narrow aperture and longer depth of field to show the smoke and her dress. The subject looks to be set in some type of living room or kitchen but it is uncertain to the limited visuals shown in which is a very eery scene in where much things seem to be disturbed and uncertain. I think before the photo was taken, there was some type of action, what makes me to believe this is that the person seems to be quite protective and startled, with her hiding the side of her neck and holding what seems to be a evening bag but with a very similar shape to some type of knife. In the background there is a mirror, in which shows her back and the vulnerability she has.
The mirror shows what looks to be a cloud of smoke but also in the foreground, telling us that she isn’t alone and that someone could potentially be smoking in the room as well. The frame of the photo also makes it so there is a sense of unknown and that there could be many factors that take place in the story of it. The reflections of a cocktail glass and a jacket slung over a chair, hint at a second, troublingly absent figure, who’s next move we can only imagine.
This suspense feels second-hand because elements like Sherman’s black dress and the pearl-clutching gesture remind us of horror and melodrama films from the 1950s and early ’60s, where women were often shown as victims or sex objects. Sherman hints at these old tropes but also pushes back against them. Her character holds a knife-shaped object in her right hand, maybe even challenging the idea of victimhood that the scene brings to mind. She’s caught between a nostalgic view of women as passive icons and the possibility of feminist empowerment. Film theory often looks at Sherman’s work, especially how it plays with genre and critiques the limiting male gaze in cinema.
Claude Cahun
Cindy Sherman and Claude Cahun both use photography to explore identity and challenge ideas about gender. They take self-portraits, changing their appearance to show that identity isn’t fixed. Cahun’s photos often used disguises to blur gender lines, questioning how society sees men and women. Sherman did something similar in her “Untitled Film Stills,” where she plays different female characters and challenges how women are usually shown in movies. Both artists use costumes and changes in appearance to make us think about how society defines gender and identity. While Cahun worked first, Sherman’s art is often compared to hers for exploring the same ideas.
Claude Cahun was a French artist and writer, known for her unique self-portraits that played with gender and identity. She often dressed up in different costumes and poses, blurring the lines between genders and questioning traditional ideas about who we are. Her work focused on the idea that identity isn’t fixed, it’s fluid and can change. Cahun was part of the surrealist movement and worked closely with her partner, Marcel Moore. She explored themes of gender, sexuality, and self-expression long before these topics became popular in the art world. Besides her photos, Cahun also wrote poems and essays about identity and society. While her work wasn’t widely recognized during her life, it has gained a lot of attention in recent years.
Claude Cahun was born as Lucy Schwob on October 25, 1894, in Nantes, France. She later adopted the name Claude Cahun as part of her artistic and gender identity exploration.
Claude Cahun’s work challenged traditional ideas about identity, gender, and self-expression. Through surreal self-portraits, she blurred the lines between male and female, exploring themes of transformation and ambiguity. Cahun sought to break free from societal expectations and fixed roles, particularly for women, promoting personal freedom and empowering people to question rigid norms.
She achieved this by photographing herself in different costumes, mixing masculine and feminine looks to show that gender isn’t fixed. Her work highlighted the fluidity of identity and encouraged people to question societal labels and embrace more open expressions of gender and self.
Cahun also had a strong connection to Jersey, where she and her partner, Marcel Moore, moved in 1937 to escape fascism. During WWII, they joined the resistance against the German occupation, using art and writing to defy the Nazis. Cahun lived in Jersey until her death in 1954, and today the island honors her legacy with exhibitions and a museum dedicated to her work.
