The Work of Cindy Sherman and the Untitled Film Stills Series

Study Guide Image Information: * Title: Untitled Film Still Number 21. * Artist: Cindy Sherman (born $1954$ ). * Date: Created in $1978$ . * Location of Creation: New York City. * Collection: The Museum of Modern Art ( $\text{MoMA}$ ) in New York City.
Categorization and Movement: * Sherman is difficult to fit into a single movement but is most commonly associated with Postmodernism (late $1970s$ and early $1980s$ ). * She is a key member of the "Pictures Generation," a group of artists who explored the power of imagery and media. * Despite these labels, she is often considered to be in her own artistic category due to her unique approach to self-portraiture and identity.
Technical Specifications and Medium: * Medium: Gelatin silver print (photograph). * Dimensions: Standard format of $8 \times 10\,\text{inches}$ , which references the size of promotional film stills issued by movie houses in the $1950s$ and $1960s$ . * Dual Nature: The object functions as both a representation of the photographic medium and a document of a performance.

Biography: * Cindy Sherman was born in $1954$ in New Jersey and grew up in New York. * She attended college in Buffalo, New York, before moving to New York City in her early twenties. * Her breakout body of work, the Untitled Film Stills ( $1977 \rightarrow 1980$ ), was developed during her early years in Manhattan.
Cultural Environment (Late 1970s NYC): * Sherman was part of the downtown New York art scene during the Punk Era ( $1977 \rightarrow 1980$ ). * The period was defined by a raw energy and a burgeoning scene in film, music, and art, centered around venues like CBGBs. * Contemporary musical influences included The Ramones and Patti Smith. * Vintage Aesthetic: Sherman’s work was conversant with the vintage fashion trends of the punk era, such as those seen with Exene Cervenka of the band X in LA, who paired $1950s$ house dresses from thrift stores with combat boots and heavy makeup.

Sherman’s Multi-Faceted Role: * In every photograph within the Untitled Film Stills series, Cindy Sherman acts as the sole creator. * She serves as the Director, Make-up Artist, Costume Artist, Lighting Designer, and Actress/Model. * She typically takes the photograph herself using a tripod and a shutter cord (a "clicker").
Process and Collaboration: * She staged many photographs inside her own loft, sometimes staying inside for weeks with groceries to focus on creating fictional scenes. * She also utilized help from "accomplices." Her boyfriend at the time, artist Robert Longo, helped find locations using his Volkswagen bus with curtains. * Exception Detail: Untitled Film Still Number 48 (the hitchhiker on the desolate road) was actually photographed by her father while the family was on a road trip.
View on Technical Craft: * Sherman does not prioritize the technical "craft" of photography or traditional darkroom skills. * She famously dropped off her film to be developed and printed by others at standard photographic labs. * Her work is distinct from the "perfect" or highly crafted photography of figures like Ansel Adams or Edward Weston. Her interest lies in the "cheapness" of popular imagery rather than technical perfection.

The Concept of a "Film Still": * Film stills are individual moments frozen from the flow of a movie, used primarily for marketing and promotion. * Sherman’s stills are fictional; they do not belong to real movies but evoke the feeling of actual cinema from the $1950s$ and $1960s$ . * The images act as "triggers" for a directory of movie tropes and archetypes stored in the viewer's cultural memory.
Genre and Archetypes: * Sherman fluidly transitions between genres including psychological thrillers, low-budget Bond films, romantic Westerns, and foreign films starring famous Italian actresses. * Archetypal Characters Observed: * The Good Girl / Career Girl: Seen in Untitled Film Still Number 21, resembling a Lois Lane type character (a smart, naive journalist in the big city). * The Horror Protagonist: A woman in a nightgown descending into a dark basement—a classic "don't go in there" trope. * The Vulnerable Hitchhiker: A character radiating innocence with ankle socks and tennis shoes on a desolate road at dusk, evoking a sense of impending danger. * The Male Fantasy: The "bombshell" (reminiscent of Anita Ekberg or Brigitte Bardot) or the woman emerging from water.

Definition of Deconstruction: * In Sherman's context, deconstruction involves taking apart the concept of identity to see how it is culturally constructed, scripted, and performed. * Sherman’s ability to change identities like costumes suggests that feminine identity is not "natural" or "given" but is a cultural generation.
The "Male Gaze": * A central critique in Sherman's work is the Male Gaze—the concept that women in popular culture are often portrayed as objects for male observation. * The work highlights how women absorb the requirement to perform for an observer, often measuring their own value through how they are viewed from the outside.
Mediated Reality: * The work reflects a "postmodern experience" where life is seen through the frame of media (movies, advertising) rather than directly. * Modern Parallel: This concept has intensified with the advent of smartphones and social media (Instagram, Facebook), where experiences (sunsets, meals, travel) often feel unverified unless they are documented and posted for others to see.
The Bechdel Test Connection: * The notes reference the Bechdel Movie Test, which asks if a film features at least two women talking to each other about something other than a man. * Sherman's images often capture the absence of independent female agency, emphasizing how many fictional female roles are defined solely in relation to male-centered plots.

Market and Critical Success: * Sherman's work was highly successful almost immediately, gaining both a strong market value and significant theoretical/art-historical attention in the late $1970s$ and early $1980s$ . * Professor Libby Lumpkin cited Sherman as a defining artist of the late $20th$ century.
Shift in Art History: * Unlike many women artists of previous generations who were overshadowed by male peers, Sherman emerged as arguably the most prominent and powerful artist of her generation. * She is not included in art history as a "token" woman artist, but as a central figure in the shift toward postmodernism. * She has achieved "Picasso-sphere" levels of success, with major museum retrospectives, massive critical acclaim, and significant financial wealth.