Introduction

We are introduced to Cindy Sherman as an example of an artist who has made her name through fabricating realties in a slightly different way to those we have studied in Part 5. Sherman stages herself in her compositions in a similar way to the artists that we studied in Part 4, but uses the fabricated reality to tell stories about women in a number of social contexts. Sherman carefully constructs her images to subtly subvert how we see women, directing each element in a similar way to the artists working in tableaux that we have looked at in this section.

Centrefolds (1981)

In this series, Sherman recreates the typical scene found in a centrefold of a softcore pornographic magazine. Everything from the lighting, the few set props and the oversaturated look of a studio film shoot are present. The model is posed in a typical ‘seductive’ way that dominates the whole frame, something that was used by the photographers in that genre to emphasise the female form. However the first and most obvious difference is that Sherman is clothed, which immediately challenges the viewer to figure out what is going on.

In this photograph, we see Sherman reclined diagonally across the frame with her arms placed in a revealing pose as was popular in the magazines of the period. Her gaze away from the camera is distant but suggests that she is looking at someone, taking on a more seductive meaning. However her clothing almost completely contradicts the feeling that this is somehow a sexual scene. Her plain jumper and gingham skirt take on a potentially more sinister theme than erotic. Instead of being seductive, the woman looks vulnerable. What is happening to her? When we look more closely, we see that she is clutching a crumpled piece of paper in her hand. Perhaps then, she has just received some bad news and she is fearful of what might happen as a result. The reclined pose itself now suggests someone submitting to a situation. Perhaps the woman has been threatened or attacked by the person she is looking at outside of the frame. What Sherman does with this image and the rest of the Centrefolds series is to almost mock the sexy poses of the glamour and softcore pornography world by telling stories of the objectified women and how our perceptions may not be reality. The photograph cleverly weaves narrative by the careful placement of the contextual elements, much like the tableau practitioners, but by using herself as a canvass Sherman asks the viewer directly to consider the way that women are subjected to objectification and categorisation against a backdrop of the largely male fantasy of pornography. The irony of the series being rejected by the magazine that originally commissioned it is not lost on me[2] as the whole idea of women being vulnerable wasn’t the aesthetic that the magazine would have been looking for. In her portrayals, Sherman creates an alternative reality that makes us feel uncomfortable, yet the message is clear that we should look beyond the female ‘object’.

Conclusion

Sherman’s take on the fabricated reality is a subtle, yet powerful way of taking a familiar context and altering it to tell a different story. While I focused on the Centrefolds series, the same approach can be seen in Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) and Society Portraits (2009). In the former Sherman explores the way that women are seen in society through the medium of cinema. In the latter, she portrays America’s wealthy women in a way that highlights them struggling to maintain their status rather than trying to defy the ageing process [3]. In both series, we see Sherman playing many different women with many different outward images, but each has a sense of the vulnerable about them. Perhaps this sense is stronger from the male perspective as the series are all set against a male dominated environment. Either way, I find the work highly charged in its emotion and very clever in its execution, perhaps the reason why Sherman’s work is prized in the world of fine art photography.

References

[1] Christies, 2011, “Cindy Sherman (b.1954) – Auction Posting, Image Resource, https://www.christies.com/lot/lot-cindy-sherman-b-1954-untitled-5437823/

[2] Manchester E, 2001, “Untitled #97, Cindy Sherman”, Gallery Page, Tate Website, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/sherman-untitled-97-p77728

[3] Unknown author and date, “The Truth about Cindy Sherman’s Society Portraits”, Phaidon Books article, https://www.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2014/february/04/the-truth-about-cindy-shermans-society-portraits/