Cindy Sherman questions the link between appearance and identity
Credit to Author: Kevin Griffin| Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2019 19:00:42 +0000
Where is the real Cindy Sherman?
In a terrific exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery where Sherman appears in something like 170 portraits, you’d think it would be easy to at least get a glimpse of the authentic Sherman. But like a great actor, she disappears into her roles.
Sherman’s elusiveness is remarkable. As I walked through the exhibition, I marvelled at her ability to change her appearance. She’s in almost every photograph and print wearing an assortment of costumes and wigs, clothing and makeup as she takes on different personas.
The exhibition started at the National Portrait Gallery in London where it was a big hit with the public and critics alike. The works span five decades and have been chosen to show how Sherman, an American artist based in New York, has returned again and again to questioning the difference between appearance and identity, said Paul Moorhouse, curator of the exhibition.
“Each character’s appearance is entirely artificial and, as such, provides no reliable clues to identity,” he said in the exhibition catalogue.
He goes on to write about his fascination with Sherman’s process as an artist which he describes as the “abiding strangeness of her activity.”
In her studio, working in isolation and without assistants, she transforms herself into alter egos and then photographs herself.
“Photography,” Moorhouse said, “became a vehicle for recording her performances.”
Sherman’s breakthrough as an artist was her Untitled Film Stills from 1977 to 1980. They’re a series of 70 black and white photographs of Sherman as characters in fictitious 1940s and 1950s films that include Alfred Hitchcock’s, especially Rear Window. They’re often cited as one of the most significant works of art from the late 20th century.
They’re all women by themselves who look outside the frame at something we can’t see. Their enigmatic settings make it easy to spin imaginary narratives for every character.
They’re displayed on a wall as a group in rows and columns. None are of specific actors or movies. Instead, they mine common movie tropes such as a Marilyn Munro lookalike caught in a camera flash at night while turning up her coat lapels, a young career girl looking uncomfortable in the big city, and a distraught party girl with makeup running down her face.
Untitled #588, dye sublimation metal print, by Cindy Sherman.
(After the film stills, which involved working outdoors, often with the help of friends, Sherman returned to work by herself in her studio.)
Sherman is considered part of the Pictures Generation group of artists who rose to prominence in the 1980s. Using the proliferation of mass media images, they started appropriating and re-presenting found images to critique them.
Sherman does that by creating characters that visually ‘quote’ existing portrayals which, more often than not, were created by men. She appropriates depictions of women from movies as well as other mediums such as magazines, TV dramas, advertising and, most recently, Instagram.
Near the start of the exhibition is one work that Magda Keaney, senior curator of photographs at the NPG, described in detail from Sherman’s days as an art student in Buffalo.
It’s a black and white series of photos like ones taken in photo booths. In more than 20 images, it shows Sherman transforming herself from an art student to a femme fatale smoking a cigarette: we see her glasses coming off and her face being stripped back to what amounts to a blank canvas. Then comes the makeup and clothing. Her character comes alive when she adds her performance.
“We see here for the first and only time Cindy allowing us the insight into the process of transformation,” Keaney said of the media preview.
In all the other works in the exhibition, the transformation is complete: Sherman shows us only the finished image, not the process she underwent to get there.
One of the themes in the exhibition is the way Sherman returned again and again to subverting fashion. One example comes from the 1980s when she was hired by maverick fashion retailer Dianne Benson to create a series of ads which led to a new body of work.
Untitled #577, dye sublimation metal print, by Cindy Sherman.
Two of them are across from each other. In one, Sherman wears a stylish long black coat and an unruly platinum blond wig that reveals one angry red eye. Her hands are clenched by the side of her body so that she looks like she could explode at any moment. The image was apparently inspired by Jessica Lange’s performance as the outspoken Frances Farmer whose film career was cut short when she was institutionalized for mental illness and then lobotomized.
In the other, Sherman is a completely different character wearing a Jean-Paul Gaultier one piece outfit. She’s a girl-next-door with her pixie-like hair and slightly opened lips like she’s about to say ‘ohhh!’ in surprise. But the ‘sexiness’ of the outfit and pose are undercut by the tacky floral print behind her and the poked-in nipples of the jumpsuit.
Sherman the actor disappears in her sex pictures which use mannequins and prosthetic body parts to create images that challenge how pornography distorts women’s bodies. One is a Frankensteinian portrait that combines the wrinkled face of an elderly woman with a torso of young breasts and an excrement-like string of dark brown sausage. I found it the most horrifying and disgusting image among several others in an exhibition room that comes with a warning at the entrance.
Sherman’s portraits of society women are outstanding. They’re so impressive I kept coming back to them several times to just sit in their presence.
They’re bigger than lifesize which makes them a little intimidating. They’re displayed so we look up to them.
They’re portraits of wealthy women who are aging but trying, in one way or another, to look as youthful as possible. Each one is portrayed with honesty and compassion. Most look like they’re aware of the difference between their inner life and the one they wear on their body.
One of the portraits shows a woman wearing a cowboy hat tilted back to reveal a warm, open face and big beaming smile. She exudes American confidence. But if you look closely you can see that the inner ribbed lining of her hat matches the crow’s feet around her eyes. Another is a reserved, statuesque figure who you might say has had a lot of work done. Wearing an expensive-looking dress that resembles a costume, she’s in front of a backdrop of an office and a collection of portraits on the walls. She looks like she’s wondering if this is all there is to life.
Cindy Sherman is organized by the NPG in collaboration with the VAG. The exhibition continues to Sunday, March 8, 2020 at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Untitled Film Still #16, black and white photograph, by Cindy Sherman is in the collection of the Vancouver Art Gallery.