Cindy Sherman

(United States of America 1954– )

Title

Untitled #113

Other titles:

MP#113
Untitled 1982

Year

1982

Media category

Photograph

Materials used

type C photograph

Dimensions

114.3 x 75.0cm sight; 118.8 x 79.5 x 3.7cm frame

Signature & date

Signed and dated verso, ink "Cindy Sherman 1982".

Credit

Mervyn Horton Bequest Fund 1986

Accession number

372.1986

Copyright

Location

Not on display

Further information

Cindy Sherman’s series ‘Untitled film stills’ took place over a five-year period beginning in 1977 when she was 23 years old. In small black-and-white photographs, she impersonated various female character types from old B-grade movies and film noir. As both performer and director, Sherman investigated the diverse ways in which glamorous mass-mediated images socialise us or discipline us, fool us or placate us. In her single-frame movies she showed moments when desire and reality, personal and collective memory, are merged. Carefully selecting costume, wig, make-up and props, as in ‘Untitled film still #35’ 1979 (AGNSW collection), Sherman mobilises a set of informational cues for triggering a daydream or reverie. With clever framing, lighting and composition, the movie fiction of a character is shown in vulnerable solitude. And we get a sense that the character is being watched, that she is the object of someone’s gaze. Since Sherman’s characters are not specified – they seem blank, vacant or absent-minded – we are free to construct our own narratives for these women.

Sherman’s later ‘Untitled film stills’ were in colour and employed rear-screen projection. The change suggested a move to the 1960s and 70s rather than the 1950s, evoking TV rather than the big screen. In this colour series the women seem less like victims or ‘femmes fatales’, more confident and independent. This was followed by a series of what appeared to be centrefolds. By copying mass-mediated modes and genres she subverts them, reversing male and female subject positions, and leaving us unsettled by the ambivalence.

In subsequent work, while exploring the strange and surreal world of fairytales, Sherman herself appears more doll-like. Using prostheses and plastic props beasts become hybrid human-doll creatures hidden among abject detritus. The piecemeal body (recalling surrealist Hans Bellmer’s ‘La demie poupée’ - AGNSW collection) reveals a fundamental aspect of our selves: our erotic imagination driven by the unconscious. It is as though the repressed and mistreated body has come back to haunt our surface selves obsessed as we are with mannequin perfection.

Bibliography (7)

Anthony Bond (England; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Wayne Tunnicliffe (New Zealand; Australia) (Commissioning Editor), Contemporary: Art Gallery of New South Wales Contemporary Collection, 2006, 240, 241 (colour illus.).

Judy Annear (Australia) (Author), American Beauty: from Muybridge to Goldin, Domain, 2003. no catalogue numbers

Bruce James (Australia) (Author), Edmund Capon (England; Australia, b.1940) (Director), Art Gallery of New South Wales handbook, Domain, 1999, 98 (colour illus.).

Black and White Jun 1996, Jun 1996, 7 (colour illus.).

Deborah Edwards (Australia) (Author), Daphne Wallace (Australia, b.1964) (Author), Margo Neale (Australia) (Author), Victoria Lynn (Australia) (Author), Sandra Byron (Australia) (Author), Review: works by women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Domain, 1995, 15, 26. no catalogue numbers

Ewen McDonald (Australia) (Editor), The Art Gallery of New South Wales collections, Sydney, 1994, 272 (colour illus.).

Art Gallery of New South Wales (Australia, estab. 1874) (Author), Great gifts, great patrons: an exhibition celebrating private patronage of the Gallery, Sydney, 1994. no catalogue numbers

Exhibition history (6)

Acquisitions from the Komon, Salkauskas and Horton Funds, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 05 May 1987–31 May 1987.

International works from the permanent collection, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 12 Jan 1991–14 May 1991.

Great gifts, great patrons, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 17 Aug 1994–19 Oct 1994.

Review - works by women from the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 08 Mar 1995–04 Jun 1995.

American Beauty: from Muybridge to Goldin, Art Gallery of New South Wales, 05 Jun 2003–27 Jul 2003.

Warning: Smoking has been linked to some of the most powerful images of the twentieth century – an MPRG exhibition., Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, 04 Apr 2006–28 May 2006.