Cindy Sherman
Born – Glen Ridge, USA 1954
Cindy Sherman graduated from the State University College at Buffalo, New York State in 1976. She moved to New York City in 1977. Sherman’s significance lies in her capacity to reinvent herself as subject, object and artist. As a photographer, she has elevated the photographic medium to fine art status. Her black and white Untitled Film Stills from the late 1970s are the works that established her reputation and with which she is most commonly associated. These are generic movie stills, of a recognisable style – Hitchcock or Scorcese – scrupulously detailed but not identifiable as a film with a particular title. Each is a carefully reconstructed scene with herself as actor, director and cameraman. Subsequent series of works develop this theme of fantasy and disguise with the camera as the voyeur. Sherman’s technical skills are flawless, making the unrealities she constructs completely believable. Untitled 22 comes from the fashion series of 1983-1984 and still retains the spirit of cinematic heroism from early work. Since the late 1980s, Sherman has also used food, vomit, prostheses and other materials to create evocative fairytale, disaster, horror and sex pictures in which neither she nor other humans feature.
Masterpieces:
- Untitled Film Still 4
- Untitled 25
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About cindy sherman
Cindy Sherman
Eva Respini
Buy on Amazon
Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills
Peter Galassi
Buy on Amazon
Cindy Sherman: Retrospective
Amanda Cruz
Buy on Amazon