Cindy Sherman

Cynthia Morris Sherman was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, on January 19, 1954. Her father was a camera collector and loved to take pictures, so she was around cameras all her life. Growing up she was very interested in the television culture of the 1960’s. She was also very drawn to costumes, disguises and makeup. In 1972 she enrolled at Buffalo State College, and graduated in 1977. But the road to graduation wasn’t a very easy one. She primarily went to college as an art education major, and she began painting. In 1975 Sherman was introduced to conceptual art, and it had an astounding impact on her. She returned to her love of wearing costumes and dress-up, spent hours transforming herself so she could go out in public to display her work. This new work excited her and she became bored and frustrated with the limitations of painting, so she switched over to photography. “There was nothing more to say (through painting)…I was meticulously copying other art and then realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead”.
Sherman saw the potential that photography had, and she could use it to express her creativity. At the age of 23 she moved to New York City. There she continued to dress-up and photograph the different things that she portrayed. She shot the majority of her photos, but she had family and friends shoot some as well. From 1977 to 1980 she shot her famous “Untitled Film Stills”. It consisted of 69 small black and white photos that actually looked and functioned like film stills, she designed them to lure the viewer into the drama of the photos. The stills depicted the female identity, and the stereotypes that women had to face in media, especially films. The stills were not specified, which allowed the viewer to construct their own narrative and story line. She hinted and guided the viewers through the stills by using her posing skills. This helped the viewer fall into the drama of the photos, because they looked so real you couldn’t help but get pulled into the drama.
In each shot Sherman was alone, but she portrayed several different women. An actress in different parts of her career, a floozy in a slip with a martini, a B-movie librarian, a secretary in the city, a voluptuous woman, an innocent runaway, and a film noir victim. Shortly after, success came quickly. By 1979 many magazines featured articles about Sherman and her work, and within 10 years she had over 30 one person shows all over the U.S. and other countries. In 1981 she released her “Centrefolds” collection, which called attention to the stereotyping of women in television and magazines. During 1983 to 1984 she released her “Fashion Pictures” series. In which the smooth flow of fashion photographs is interrupted by angry or strange poses, scarred faces, and bodily fluids. As if the models were physically rejecting that identity of feminity.
In the late 1980’s Sherman’s work became much darker. In her series “Fairy Tales” she replaced the traditional images of a fairy tale with death and decay. Grotesque monsters and body parts were also shown. By doing this she wanted to reveal fairy tales for what they were; showing their sexual undertones, real violence and horror. “Sex Pictures” was next; it contained grotesque and surreal images of dismembered medical dummies, prosthesis’, and mannequins. She had gotten even more graphic than that, in some of her pictures she even used body parts. She returned her focus on the female identity in the 1990’s and continued to use mannequins and even dolls in her photographs.
Cindy Sherman also has a countless amount of other works, awards, and films. She is a woman who is not afraid to voice her opinions and her mind. She used film and photographs to address the stereotypes placed on women in the media, advertising, magazines, and movies. Sometimes she is ironic or graphic; she even hands the viewpoint over to the viewers so that they may see her implications for themselves. She is a brilliant woman, a great photographer and an activist.