Weekly Selfie II- Cindy Sherman

 

Cindy Sherman
Untitled Homage to Claude Cahun (1975),, 2004

My selfie was inspired by Cindy Sherman's piece, pictured above. I chose it because of the 80's stoic feel it gave and the creative aspect of the make up she chose. 

The Cindy Sherman Effect by Phoebe Hoban- Art News

• "The art world was ready for something new, something beyond painting. A group of mostly women happened to be the ones to sort of take that on, partly because they felt excluded from the rest of the [male] art world, and thought, ‘Nobody is playing with photography. Let’s take that as our tool.’”
• "Perhaps the world’s most self-effacing artist (literally and figuratively), Sherman refuses to take any credit for her innovations. What has she herself discovered through her work? “I think it has made me realize that we’ve all chosen who we are in terms of how we want the world to see us,” she says."

In this article we follow the impact of Cindy Sherman's style of art on the generations after her. She paved the way for herself in a male-dominated, art world and created a style that allowed her to create a perception of her own identity instead of letting others assume that for her.  

The Ugly Beauty of Cindy Sherman- New York Times

• "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. "
• "Are these women insisting on being seen or are they taunting us, mischievously playing on fears of female ugliness, of becoming old and absurd or just invisible? That slipperiness in her work — does she see people clearly out of kinship or cruelty? — becomes complicated here by her ambivalence about aging."

This NY Times article dives into the childhood and uprising of Cindy Sherman. She felt misunderstood as a child and used dressing up and playing "characters" to fit in with her siblings. She continued to use this form of expression to infiltrate the art world creating art through self, especially for women. From what I gathered from those two quotes above, is women have to stop viewing themselves through the male gaze because society has deemed them as objects that once we get old, are useless, but we create our own identity and worth.