You Are Not Cindy Sherman

By Emma Krasov
The one, the only, and the most comprehensive Cindy Sherman exhibition on the West Coast is currently on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA).

A 35-year retrospective of the artist’s unimaginably broad spectrum of photographic imagery for which she relentlessly models herself comes from the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), and includes more than 150 photographs from private collections, SFMOMA, and other museums.

The richly-textured show encompasses Cindy Sherman’s early black-and-white cutouts intended to create an illusion of movement and multiplicity; her intuitive revelations in Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) presenting an encyclopedia of cinematic female stereotypes; her very unorthodox fashion photography; her psychologically-charged Centerfolds (1981); “ugly aristocrats” in History Portraits (1989-90) and her more mature works in Hollywood/Hamptons series (2000-02) and [conditionally-titled] Society Portraits (2008).

Let me rephrase that. Cindy Sherman as a person might be by definition more mature now, at the age of 58 than she was at 25, but even her early body of work seem to possess that level of maturity that stems from the profound understanding of human perception.  

Not that it’s obvious to anyone. (I blame the breathy accessibility, the colloquial lightness of her oeuvre).    

“Doesn’t do anything for me,” said one smartly dressed female at the show opening at SFMOMA last week. “We are all Cindy Shermans…”

“As an artist, don’t you want to tell something about the world, not just about yourself?” said another bespectacled fashionista. “What’s so very unique about her?”

Engaged with the artwork, I couldn’t politely interject with my own comments, but they were circling in my head long after I left the museum building.

What’s unique about Cindy Sherman, is that’s she is unique – as an artist and as a person. (Not so unique, or very unique). She’s just one, peerless in her endless pursuit of expression through countless personae she assumes for a brief photographic moment; in her level of concentration, her complete immersion in the photographic “truth,” her persistent analysis of human types and subtypes – in so many different ways.  

What makes Sherman an artist as opposed to an obsessive dresser is, among other things, her total disregard for every woman’s inherent desire to look her best in any circumstances.

Sherman didn’t hesitate to dress as an old lady and pose for pictures in a city park when she was 12, and continues to intentionally uglify her face and body whenever the image calls for it – stuffing her stockings to fatten her slender ankles in Untitled Film Stills, reddening her sclerae in Fashion shots, attaching fake noses, droopy boobs, and bald craniums in History Portraits, and imposing a fine mesh of tiny wrinkles on her cheeks in Society Portraits.

What she is telling us about the world of visual fetishes, cultural markers, and accepted stereotypes we inhabit might not be easily digestible, but it’s all good medicine – rightfully prescribed and courageously applied. 

Born in 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, Sherman received her BA from Buffalo State College and moved to New York City in 1977, where she has resided ever since. To create her photographs, Sherman works unassisted in her studio, and assumes multiple roles as photographer, model, art director, makeup artist, hairdresser, and stylist. An illustrated catalogue contains essays by exhibition curator Eva Respini and art historian Johann Burton, as well as a new interview with Sherman conducted by filmmaker and artist John Waters.                          

The show runs through October 08 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street, San Francisco. For tickets and information on group tours visit http://www.sfmoma.org/.  

Image: Cindy Sherman, Untitled #92, 1981; The Museum of Modern Art, New York.