Cindy Sherman Essay example

Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity was written by Griselda Pollock in 1988, and later published in The Expanding Disclosure in 1992. Griselda Pollock is an art historian, and writes this article for fellow art historians. This is an article written to show the different approaches to femininity in the late 19th century, mainly dealing with the field of art. This article shows how during this time period there were women artists, but due to the gendered ruled ideas attached to art history, these women are largely ignored by art historians. Pollock thought that these women artists are primarily overlooked due to the fact that they are judged by the same standards that are affixed to the work of their male counterparts. But she argues

(Millhouse, 2011) In the 1980’s Pollock’s Feminism “critiqued the essential myths of individualism, the artist, and the social constructions of femininity and masculinity that define bourgeois culture”. While the 70’s feminism movement aim was to stand next to the existing masculine dominated culture. “Feminism's encounter with the canon has been complexed and many-leveled: political ,ideology,mythological,methodological and psycho-symbolic” (Pollock, 1999). The 1970’s movement was followed by the immediate task which was “the need to rectify the gaps in historical knowledge created by the consistent omission of women of all cultures from the history of art” (Pollock, 1999). The only art that was put on display was significantly male dominated work, if you wanted to see work created by women, you would have to view them “in a basement or storeroom of a national gallery” (Pollock, 1999). Female artists are only known in their own category of female artists while male artists don’t require a separate category . Art that is created by females have been historically dismissed from the art historical canon as craft, as opposed to fine art. The evident of

In American history women were not given as many rights as men were. They were treated unfairly because of their gender. Throughout American history there were American women who took a stand and fought for women’s rights. Who were some American women right’s activists in American History that stood up for themselves and other women in throughout America?

The painting Udney Maria Blakeley (1830), by Thomas Sully, was the first painting that came to mind when assigned the project: the painting has fascinated me both as a child and an adult due to the beauty of both the woman in the painting, but also from my deeper understanding of art now. Thomas Sully used the wet medium of oil on canvas, and included the woman in the foreground of the painting holding a rose in a vase in her right hand. There is a deep contrast between the women dressed in a white gown, and the darker background of the painting. Due to the highlighting along the left side of her face, and the shadowing on the right, it can be assumed that she is facing, or even looking straight at the

1985 (Figure 2) first appeared in 1985 plastered on billboards around New York City. The piece is illustrated in monochrome colours so to not distract viewers from the meaning of the poster. The harsh contrast in colours between the black writing and white background make the piece stand out and draw the attention of bypassers. Written on the artwork is a list of well-known museums in New York City and beside them is a score of how many women artists have had one-person exhibits there in the past year. The results showed that the Guggenheim, Metropolitan and Whitney museums each had zero, whilst the Modern museum had one. These results are supposed to shock the audience and make gallery curators feel a sense of guilt, that it’s clear the art world don’t appreciate women artists like they do men. Whist they are confronting the public with that truth they are also providing another critical message with this piece. The Guerrilla Girls identified these museums by first name, not out of convenience, but to make a statement, that the only museums to allow women artist some form of respect like male artist do was the ‘modern’ museum. Emphasising the fact that gender discrimination and bias nature in the art world should be in the past, and the only museum that realises and recognises this is the modern one. The poster’s main message challenges the patriarchal world of art and confronts art galleries

A variety of her works in the late 1970’s were called “Untitled Film Stills.” These were portraits of Sherman playing “stereotypical woman roles” in the 1960’s and 1950’s. Although, these were not self-portraits,

For my term paper I decided to go to the Cantor Museum in Palo Alto, and I chose to focus on two portraits of women from two distinct time periods. First, I decided on the portrait of Margaret Blagge, Wife of Sidney, 1st Earl of Godolphin. This portrait was painted by the artist Matthew Dixon in 1675, in the Baroque period of art. The portrait of Margaret Blagge was done in England, and it was painted as an oil on canvas. The second artwork I chose to compare was the Portrait of Sally Fairchild by John Singer Sargent. This portrait was done from the year 1884 to 1887 during the Realism movement in art. The portrait of Sally Fairchild was painted in the United States of America, and was painted as an oil on canvas. When comparing these two portraits

The background of the painting is very dark and a reflective of the dark times some women were in during this time. The dark background and the subject’s serious persona give the painting a mysterious sensation. Mrs. Richard Skinner’s clothing pieces are very light colors which give a light-hearted ambiance to the painting but the dark background, dim lighting, and the dark table that lay before her completely alter the mood of the painting. The lighting of the painting, therefore, emphasizes Mrs. Richard Skinner even more due to her dark surroundings, which is another example of Copley’s attempt at accentuating her womanhood. Some of the props in this painting elaborate and stress her sexuality even further. The subject is holding a flower in the painting; flowers are symbolic of purity and femininity. The way the subject is holding the flowers is to be noted as well. She is holding

The artwork is a realistic portrait of a women. It is abstracted with asymmetrical balance with exotic and vibrant colors. As if the women is sitting in the corner with two

The characters Sherman portrays, lighting, clothing and expressions are cliché of what is present in cinema, so much that viewers of her work have told Sherman that they ‘remember the movie’ that the image is derived from, yet Sherman having no film in mind at all.[iv] Thus showing that her word has a pastiche of past cinematic genres, and how women are portrayed in cinema and photography and how Sherman has manipulated the ‘male gaze’ around her images so they become ironic and cliché.

No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman's photography is part of the culture and

Judy Chicago (artist, author, feminist and educator) has a career that now spans five decades. In the late 1960s, her inquiry into the history of women began a result of her desire to expose the truth of women’s experiences, both past and present. She still continues on a crusade to change the perception of women from our history, “Women’s history and women’s art need to become part of our cultural and intellectual heritage.” (Chicago, 2011) Through our history women - their struggles, accomplishments and contribution to history, have been overlooked, downplayed and even completely written out of a male dominated society and culture. In anthropologist Sherry Ortner’s 1974 essay “Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?” she supports this view, writing “…woman is being identified with—or, if you will, seems to be a symbol of—something that every culture devalues,” (Ortner, 1974) Where Mendieta's work primarily came from a striving to belong and an understanding of where she came from, I feel that Chicago's aim was to find a place for all women, past and present in this world, starting with herself in the art world. Chicago did explore her peronal heritage in later works entitled 'Birth Project' and 'Holocaust Project'.

Sherman’s work talks about her own belief that representations itself is pre-coded, and in this case by cinema. In one of the stills in particular, Still Number 6, Sherman poses as a woman who looks as though she is daydreaming. In this photograph she is holding a mirror in one hand, and has a chilling blank stare on her face. The photograph has a disturbing undertone to it, which gives the feeling that she could also

On page 87 in Artforms is the painting Self-Portrait in a Straw Hat. This oil painting was produced by Marie Louise Elizabeth Vigee-LeBrun in the year 1782. The work of art depicts a young woman, presumably the artist, posing in front of a clouded blue sky. The figure is clothed in a rose colored dress with white ruffle along the neckline, a navy blue colored shawl which is wrapped around the crooks of her arms, and a straw hat adorned with bright red, blue, and white flowers. A large white feather with black trim is protruding from the hat. The lady in the portrait is facing forward and holding paint brushes and a palette topped with paints in her left hand. Her hair frames her face and fall on top of her

Also, collaged images of woman 's genitalia were cut out and spaced all around the portrait. The spaces were carefully used to show that the collages were floating around the woman. The artist used overlapping technique to show certain collage cut-out appear closer to the viewer. He pasted some collage over and some behind the woman that you could see through with the overlapping. The collage images were abstract that you could barely tell that they were buttocks until you zoom in and see them close up.