Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman was born in January 19, 1954, in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. After Sherman's birth her family moved to Huntington, Long Island. Sherman became interested in the visual arts at Buffalo State College, where she began painting. Sherman realized that all she was doing was copying someone's else painting and later she started thinking of using a camera and put some time into and idea. Througout college she spent the rest of her career focused in photography. Altough Sherman failed a photography class her freshman year in college, she took the class again with a professor named Barbara Jo Revelle, she introduced Sherman to conceptual art and other contemporary forms.While Sherman was in college, she met Robert Longo who encouraged her to record her process of dressing up for parties and more.When Sherman graduated from college, she decided to move to New York to start her new career in art. Sherman began taking photographs of herself, these photographs became known as the Untitled Film Stills, the most regognized photographs of Sherman's career. Sherman shoots pictures alone in her studio, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, mistress and model. She uses different costumes and make-up to transfrom her identity for each image. Sherman does not consider her work femenist. I will display some of Sherma's potographs.



Cindy Sherman

 In each of these photgraphs, Sherman plays a type not an actual person. Sherman communicates the viewer that these works are not meant to depict Cindy Sherman the person. By tittling each of the photographs "untitled", as well as numbering them, Sherman depersonalizes the images. Sherman's personality is shown throughout her photographs. Each of photographs is unique an ambiguous that the viewer is left with more confusion than clarity over Sherman's true nature. Sherman completed the project three years later,in 1980, when she "ran out of cliches" with which to work. This series gave Sherman much publicity and acclaim; she had her first solo show at the nonprofit space, the kitchen, in New York City. In 1980, Sherman also created a series of what she called "Rear- Screen Projections" in which ,similarly to the Film Stills, Sherman dressed up and paraded against a projected slide background.
In 1981 Sherman was asked to shoot photographs for the magazine Artforum to do a "centerfold" for one of their upcoming issues. Sherman proceeded to submit a series of images with a cohesive aesthetic look: the camera was placed above Sherman, who was often crouched on the ground or made to look like she was in a state of reverie. This series, as well as an additional series of Sherman in a pink robe, was rejected by Artforum 's editor, Ingrid Sischy, who claimed that these photographs "might be misunderstood."

In 1992 Sherman did a series of photographs now referred to as "Sex Pictures." For the first time, Sherman is entirely absent from these photographs. Instead, she again uses dolls and prosthetic body parts, this time posed in highly sexual poses. Prosthetic genitalia - both male and female - are used often and photographed in extreme close-up. Photographed exclusively in color, these photographs are meant to shock. Sherman continued to work on these photographs for some time and continued to experiment with the use of dolls and other replacements for what had previously been herself.

 Sherman as achieved international success young age, her work has had a consider valuable. In 1999 the average selling price for one of her photographs was $20,000 to $50,000, a good sum for a female photographer. Even more ground-breaking was a 1999 Christie's auction in which one of the photographs from Film Stills sold for a reported $190,000. This was perhaps inspired by the Museum of Modern Art's lead: in 1996, they purchased a complete set from Film Stills for one million dollars. These prices are indicative of Sherman's huge level of success, both critically and financially. Sherman's popularity continues to grow around the world, as she has exhibited countries including Germany, Japan, France.