Ramon Vega

Cindy Sherman

Film Nior

Gelatin Silver

Untitled Film Still #15, 1978

Office Killer,1977

     Cindy Sherman was born on January 19, 1954 (63) and is best known for creating photographs that reminds you of genres such as porn centerfolds, Fashion photos, Renaissance portrait painting and film noir. (Which is black and white film that depicts a crime drama) Sherman uses herself as the subject of the genre that she is trying to depict and uses makeup, costumes, props, and prosthetic devices to help her become those characters. Jamerson describes Sherman’s photos as “there is always something slightly skewed, familiarized, or incomplete about her imitation.” (Heartney 124). She also uses gelatin silver to make her photographs (Guggenheim). Geltain Silver made a two-process step of developing photographs into one and allowed for portable photography, black and white photography, and eventually color and film. During development, the silver releases dye and during fixing you get rid of the silver but the dyes remain. The aesthetics of a Gelatin print is a smooth surface because the gelatin sits on top of the paper and holds the image material together as opposed to a salted paper print where the image material seeps into the fibers of the paper.

     You can see Sherman’s use of pastiche particularly in her “untitled Film Stills” series. It is considered pastiche because her photography mimics the style of European films and B movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s. People think they have seen the movie that the photographs are based on but because her photos are a generalization of the genre, the actual movie never exists. In her photo, Untitled Film Still #15, 1978 she plays the role of a young women in provocative clothing staring pensively out of a window, evoking the familiar scenario of the small-town girl forced to trade her high moral standards to survive in a big city. When Sherman was creating this series in the late 1970s the films she was depicting were already forgotten and today it is even harder to remember them.

     Although this is not a photograph, Sherman’s most complex form of pastiche comes from her full-length movie Office Killer, 1977. Which lasts for an hour and thirty-five minutes. Here she is deconstructing and messing around with the conventions of what makes up a horror film. Although the movie is about a killer Sherman changes what you normally think would happen by placing the setting in a publishing office. This distances her film from common environments found in horror films. Although you can still see elements from slasher films like Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and scream (1996) with depictions of repressed characters gone mad like Carrie (1976) and Psycho (1960) (Heartney 124). Heartney calls Sherman’s movie “circuitous” because the film looks like it inspired her series although the opposite happened.

     Sherman’s most controversial series is Sex Pictures, 1992. Like Untitled #258 Sherman continues to talk about sexual subject matter in her work. Although, this time in a more extreme way because the position of the doll could suggest how a person could be after they are raped. But at the same time, she is suggesting how women are portrayed in pornography laying down naked with a giant vagina. Which is repulsive but fascinating at the same time.

  Heartney, Eleanor. Art & Today. New York: Phaidon Press Inc, 2008. Print

https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/4380

RULES

1. Never have been alone

2. Man and nature connected

3. Must have plants

4. Wandering spirit

RULES

1. Never have been alone

2. Man and nature connected

3. Must have plants

4. Wandering spirit

RULES 

1. Never have been alone

2. Man and nature connected

3. Must have plants

4. Wandering spirit