The Work of Cindy Sherman Essay

Many individuals have had an influence on the United States and globally, both in the positive and negative sense. One example of a positive influencer on the world was Emma Goldman. She faced injustice from an early age, which contributed to her interest and eventual involvement in political and radical movements. Growing up Jewish in an anti-Semitic country, Goldman and her family experienced oppression and discrimination firsthand. Goldman often had heroines that she looked up to as a child whom also sparked her motivation to make a change (“The Emma Goldman Papers”). Through her lifetime, Goldman made her mark in a variety of reforms and anarchist movements, with which she strongly identified and agreed. Even up until her death in

In the 1970s, Hannah began using her body as a canvas for performance pieces. She called this her “performalist self-portraits,” (Smith, 1993) and they were documented by either video or by photographs. These particular performances, according to Hannah “confront erotic stereotypes by calling attention to and making ironic the conventional gestures, poses, and attributes of the female body” (Hannah Wilke Collection, 2015). In 1974, Hannah began working on S.O.S. or Starification Object Series, a fifty self-portrait installation,

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

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

Cindy Sherman, well known for her photography of her representing issues that commonly represent both the roles of being an artist, being a woman and the two combined. Sherman grew up in a large family that did not have any interest in art. Her knowledge of art growing up was very minimal until she went to college. She, then, started to paint. She quickly realized she did not like painting because of the lack of intimacy or recreation of a particular setting. She did, however love photography and started pursued an interest in that.

Terror and mockery come together in the portraits of Cindy Sherman on display at the Crocker Art Museum. Walking into the large, dimly lit ballroom, one may begin to feel a slight sense of trepidation as the viewer looks around to find nine sets of beady eyes watching one’s every move. Sherman produced her History Portraits during the late eighties and early nineties, nine of which are displayed at the museum. In her portraits she uses lush fabrics, lavish jewelry, and false body parts to decorate herself in these self-portraits. Her portraits have been know to cause discomfort in the viewers who find the general stereotypes, depicted in her portraits, amusing, yet confusing and terrorizing.

Cindy Sherman the American photographer is known as the queen of the self because of her self-portraits and her extravagant dresses.

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.

Already on the first day of "Self: I as Image" course I already learned a lot about selfies. There is a deeper definition to a selfie then just taking a picture of yourself and uploading it on to either Snapchat, Instagram or even Facebook. Cindy Sherman, who is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art" (Cindy Sherman | MoMA.). Sherman was born in 1954, watching her documentary really helped understand her personality, character and her hobby. Sherman has her art work showcased Sherman is clearly an independent woman in life. There would be days where she will not leave her house just so she could take self-portraits of herself.

After conducting research on all three artist I have decided to look more deeply into Cynthia Sherman, better known as Cindy. My decision on Cindy came very easily to me because I love art through photography. Cindy was born last into a five children house hold to her mother and father. She was born in New Jersey but shortly after birth the family moved to Road Island where Cindy was raised. While at Buffalo State College Cindy began painting but quickly found she was limited. She was unable to come up with her own style and that frustrated her. She then put down the paint brushes and picked up a camera. Cindy found she could quickly capture the art that was around her. Cindy was known for taking snapshots of herself. Many of times she took

Cindy Sherman was influenced by the cinema of her time to create film stills, or images that appear to come straight out of a movie. I was extremely excited for this project due to my previous experience working with films in the director role. For this project, I decided that my film stills would all appear to be from the same film. My main focus with this project was to create interesting shots to convey the idea of film. I also wanted to have the same "costume" throughout the set of selfies. By creating creative angles for my shots and sticking with the same outfit, I hope to replicate the film style of Cindy Sherman.

Cindy Sherman’s, Untitled Film Stills from 1977 are a series of 69 total photographs that were comprised in order to appear as though they were actually taken from film reels. Sherman appears in every one of these shots, and finds a way to create a common thread throughout each of them despite the fact that the characters that she is portraying are vastly different from one another. She accomplishes this by using similar clothing, lighting, setting, and compositions as those that would be found in American B-movies from the 1950s and 1960s.

I choose Cindy Sherman, when searching for a photographer that I wanted to research. What caught my eye was the amazing variety of tools that were presented in the photograph.

Barbara Kruger, artist and theorist, has directed and informed much of the curatorial project. Kruger’s perspectives on feminism speak to

Sally Mann’s style incorporates black and white photographs of her children, which are presented with “ordinary moments of childhood, suspended in time and transformed into aesthetic objects, takes on a distorted, even uncanny quality” (Arnason and Mansfield 719). Sally Mann photographed The New Mothers in 1989. This photograph’s most dominant elements are value and space. Having the photographs black and white really enhances the visibility of values. Most of Mann’s work is outside and has a define depth of field to blur out the background and emphasize the focus of the children. This compositional style helps to identify the high and low key values within the photos. The clothes, the reflection of the sun on the girls’ hair, and the girls fair skin are the part of the image that show high-key values, while the rest of the photo in more middle and low-key values. The intense depth of field increases a feeling of space for the viewer. In the photo you can see that the two young girls and their stroller is all in a line horizontally. Behind the girls you can notice they are outside in a open area because of the blurred grass and trees behind them. This photograph’s most dominant principles are movement and variety. The depth of field and lack of distraction in the background of the photo allows your eye to focus and move around with the subjects in the photo. The height of the subjects forms a triangle shape, which is