Cindy Sherman February 26–June 11, 2012
Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954) is widely recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. Throughout her career, she has presented a sustained, eloquent, and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history. Working as her own model for more than 30 years, Sherman has captured herself in a range of guises and personas which are at turns amusing and disturbing, distasteful and affecting. To create her photographs, she assumes multiple roles of photographer, model, makeup artist, hairdresser, stylist, and wardrobe mistress. With an arsenal of wigs, costumes, makeup, prosthetics, and props, Sherman has deftly altered her physique and surroundings to create a myriad of intriguing tableaus and characters, from screen siren to clown to aging socialite.
--Cindy Sherman reminds me of a pop icon Madonna in terms of transforming herself so promptly with extraordinary determination while keeping herself perfectly under control. They both may be strong feminist women, but their art works are feminine Cliché.
Well, I can't tell who Cindy Sherman is through her artworks since her works never talk about her own life, hidden under the mask, makeup, prop, costumes, or staged setting.
I liked her groundbreaking series "Untitled Film Stills" (1977–80) best from this exhibition. I thought those B&W photographs are much much more creative and imaginative than her later works. I found "Cindy" appeared in her earlier works more natural, attractive and she seemed genuinely enjoy what she was doing. I wouldn't say I liked her color works in a large format. Those are too intense, forcible, repetitive, and confusing. Her most recent larger-than-life society portraits (2008) are carefully staged and fun to look at, but not as interesting as her earliest works.
Besides, I liked so much of her collage and video works that she created while she was in college. The stop motion animation was surprisingly good. She might have taken a more different direction as a conceptual artist if she concentrated on more of this type of work. Unfortunately (or fortunately), her early photo work series seemed to get too much attention too soon.
Madonna hosted Sherman's 1997 show at the MoMA
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-galenson/the-unique-value-of-cindy_b_871803.html
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