The Cindy Sherman Effect
"We live in the era of YouTube fame and reality-TV shows and makeovers, where you can be anything you want to be any minute of the day, and artists are responding to that. Cindy was one of the first to explore the idea of the malleability or fluidity of identity."
"Artistic personae can not only be instantly created but also instantly animated and disseminated."
In the age of technology and social media we are allowed to be someone different online than the person we are in real life. We can become a character or characters, and if we chose not to be that person tomorrow then we don't have to be. Cindy Sherman's exploration of identity and character prefaced the culture we're in today and was a major conduit to what is happening now on the social media sphere. Furthermore, many people who create these online personas eventually take on the character full-fledged and the lines between what is and isn't begins to be blurred. Often times many people see themselves in these characters, and playing a character allows people to fully partake in being the person who they've always wanted to be. But then again, who we are as people is ever changing so it begs the question: are you playing a character or are you being who you've always wanted to be?
The Ugly Beauty of Cindy Sherman
"In fact, her images are so foundational to feminist art criticism, to notions of the “male gaze,” that it can be difficult to see them for themselves — they come to us encrusted with theory."
"She has no camouflage. None of the women in the series do. Their vulnerability pains me — how badly they want to achieve some kind of glamour, how magnificently they miss the mark."
With the characters that Sherman puts on she actively goes against the male gaze and in turn creates something that is initially strange yet refreshing. The writer mentions the vulnerability of the characters and how they miss the mark which is reflective of the climate that we're in. Although I haven't been long around enough to know exactly, it seems like not much as changed from before. Men have dictated what women should and shouldn't do in terms of appearance, and the images by Sherman are a big "F*** you" to that notion.
Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #46. 1979
"I wanna go fast. I wanna go fast."
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