not overrated

 

Cindy Sherman Retrospective at MoMA
through June 11, 2012
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“[T]he one thing I’ve always known is that the camera lies.” -Cindy Sherman (Respini 23).

To lie, here, means that the image produced by the camera may not necessarily correspond to the perception that we might experience directly, if we were immersed in that situation first hand, knew the context, if there was an element of time. The photographic image eliminates the temporal factor, which results in an isolated fragment of reality; this mere fragment of the larger picture provides the false impression of representing the entirety of an event or reality.

The camera also alters our perceptions of reality itself. The image created by the camera inevitably differs from the one created by our sensory perceptions; as long as we continue to experience the world through images, as we do now, the world through the camera lens becomes our reality, and the actual physical world starts to appear false. The camera is a device that continually deceives its unknowing victims.

But we do all know this, at least on a subconscious level. For example, we look at a picture of a friend and say, “Weird, that doesn’t look like you,” or “You look exactly like your father in this picture,” when the photographic image does not correspond with our own impression of the person. Some people even have special poses or facial expressions specifically reserved for the camera. This latter phenomenon in particular stems from an awareness that the image produced will be viewed, whether by oneself alone or multiple people; the impulse to pose is thus an attempt to project a type of image of oneself, what one deems may look attractive, etc.

And as Cindy Sherman indicates through the work she has produced throughout several decades of her career, these notions of what one believes will look good, desirable, etc., may enter our consciousness subliminally through the endless stream of images in the media, especially those of popular advertisements and film. The case in point: most of her images—even the fairy tales series, the disasters, and maybe the sex photos too?—appear familiar to us, even though Sherman claims that she rarely makes a direct reference to a specific image. This is because the artist pulls these images from our collective consciousness; we recognize them because they correspond with a certain pattern of images that exist in media representations of people, specifically women. When we learn that Sherman’s characters are not mere parodies of pre-existing images but a general enactment of types, we become stunned the way in which the images in our mass culture leave such strong impressions on our own perceptions, and in turn, the way we subconsciously use these patterns to project desirable images of ourselves.

While her early work, such as the Untitled Film Stills, 1977-1980 and other color cinema series from 1981, address the artificiality of the female image projected by the film industry, her later work, such as the head shot series, 2000-2002 and 2008 society series, critique the way in which these cultural ideals play out in our culture once they have already infiltrated and solidified within our collective consciousness. These latter portraits are humorous and disturbing: we laugh, wondering who actually thinks this kind of pose, makeup, orange air-brush tan look good, then realize we have seen people who present themselves in this manner. Regarding the head shots in particular, Eva Respini, in MoMA’s exhibition catalogue for Sherman’s retrospective, writes: “Whichever part of the country they’re from, we’ve seen these women before—on reality TV, in soap operas, or at the PTA meeting” (Respini 44). The women in the society series also “belie the attempt to project a certain appearance” while they pose for the camera (Respini 47). In both series, each woman is always conscious of the camera’s presence, trying her best to reproduce the desirable image of herself that has been fed by mass culture. Most of them, many will agree, look hideous: Sherman presents how the ideal female image can mutate to the point of oblivious perversion. Some are extreme cases, but others, not so much: we know people who have gotten botox, a new cosmetically altered nose, or spends hours getting ready to leave the house.

With her clown series from 2002-2004, Sherman pushes her interest in life as masquerade to the extreme. While the characters in some of her other work pose and act in attempts to render an attractive self-image for social acceptance, clowns, both male and female, play the ultimate dress-up that marks them as outsiders of society. The characters in the head shots and society series, for example, use make-up to alter and mask features of their face that they wish to hide; clowns use make-up as masks—Sherman is barely recognizable behind the layers of powder and costume. Respini situates these series in the artist’s context:

The clown can be seen as a stand-in for the artist, who is often expected to entertain in the contemporary circus of society and is encouraged to act outside of codified norms. Perhaps the sad clown in Untitled #413 […], donning a silk jacket embroidered with “Cindy” on the chest, is an acknowledgment of the demands made on the artist to embody such a manufactured persona (Respini 45).

But the entire series continues Sherman’s overall line of thought on social masquerade and the construction of identity. Make-up, dress, pose, and facial expressions are utilized by many—especially women—as signs the evoke a particular image/aura. Sherman, through the clowns as well as through her other work, demonstrate that the societal demands to act in adherence to prescribed standards pervades all levels of society—low to high—and you, I, or even the artist herself is not an exception to their power.