Certain artists seem to stay current by continually re-inventing themselves. Think about Madonna’s career. Every time she has a new album she takes on a new persona: one year she’s ‘Zen’, another year she’s country, another year she’s a Jazzercise instructor. But are we really witnessing a genuine transformation of self, or just a costume change? Perhaps re-invention has simply become her marketing tool, to appeal to us with familiar constructions of femininity.
What is happening to Sherman in the images?
Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills use the imagery of movies to investigate the production of female identity. Although the woman in both images is Sherman, each image tells a different story, and stars a different character. We assume certain ‘truths’ about the character in the image through visual clues: hairstyle, clothing, the groceries, the pots and pans, the solitary road.
What do the images suggest about women in movies?
Images of women in movies, while fictionalized, may seem very real. Sherman shows these representations of women just to be ideas about women that are not necessarily true. Sherman questions images and their ability to give valid information about the people photographed.
What are film stills? What is their relation to moving images?
Still photography came before the invention of movies. Although they are unable to directly show movement and action, photographs can still give a sense of movement and narrative. The women in Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills are placed between two absent, imaginary images; one that comes before, and one that comes after. We want to know how the groceries ended up on the floor, or why the woman in the road is out there so late at night? Where is she going?
Sherman also plays women from outside of movies. This colour portrait comes from a series using various stereotypes of white women, all played by Sherman.
Here’s a bio for Sherman at cindysherman.com
Here’s an entry at The Confidential Attachées that talks about Sherman’s influence on the Tori Amos album Strange Little Girls
