Sherman and her film stills series
I’ve long been a fan of Sherman, not only for her ingenuity to create interesting and visually provocative pieces of art in the form of photography, but also her sheer staying power with just putting on and changing those costumes time and again. She comments in one post that I saw recently that she was getting tired of putting on the costumes and makeup!
The Stills from the film series interest me. I am curious to know what she had in mind when she made some of these pieces. In some ways, her work is not so dissimilar to that of Gregory Crewdson in the cinematic dramatic effect that her photos produce. I really like her work because it feels like she is grafting and trying to get something out of herself. At times her pieces feel quite cathartic to look at.
When looking at her work, I felt that there was some resonance with what I had made in my sequence for assignment 4 although I discovered that in retrospect. My use of costume for the character in the photos that I took was a little dressed up. The idea was to try to emphasis her beauty but also her fragility. With Sherman, she portrays a range of human emotions, some more effective and convincing than others.
In sherman’s work its as if the artist is trying to get out of her own way and make some sort of statement about the human state, at least as she sees it. This is sometimes more convincing and sometimes less so. However, her creatively exploited props and costumes do go along way to provide a certain context for what it is that she wants to say in the situation. Her later work for me, is less enjoyable to engage with. I see that she went through a sort of morose or morbid stage being obsessed with horror movies and making photos of mutilated dolls or doll figures lit with strange lighting and music that provokes a kind of fear effect. I’ll give her credit for that, because if that was her intention then she certainly achieves it.
references
Images: Sherman C. Untitled film series (1979 & 1980) https://es.images.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A7x9Uk4GjutYOnQAusO_.wt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsYWhiN2NvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2lyMgR2dGlkAw–?_adv_prop=image&fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-fh_hp&va=cindy+sherman+untitled+film+stills+series&hspart=GenieoYaho&hsimp=yhs-fh_hp#id=8&iurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.tate.org.uk%2Fart%2Fimages%2Fwork%2FP%2FP11%2FP11519_10.jpg&action=click [accessed April 2017]
OCA log level 1 Photography 
