Cindy Sherman - More than a game of dress ups?
Cindy Sherman Exhibition GOMA Brisbane
28 MAY 2016 – 3 OCT 2016 – More than a game of dress ups?
Cindy Sherman is coined
as the great chameleon through her socially critical photography and has graced
Australian shores with her first solo exhibition in 15 years at GOMA, Brisbane
2016. This exhibition could be viewed as
traversing her earlier post-modern work, inside the ‘Pictures Generation’, into
the contemporary arena. Sherman is
giving a current interpretation of the age, a certain ‘kairos’, defining the
invisible stretch of the digital upon identity constructs, social stereotypes
and contemporary feminism albeit a white spray tanned aging narrative. Sherman’s obsessive preoccupation with this carefully
constructed story-telling technique within a single image and the ability to crucially
move with the digital times have given her the opportunity to work with some
big names like fashion houses Balenciaga and Chanel. The exhibition included ‘Balenciaga’ 2007–08,
and ‘Chanel’ 2010–2013, ‘Society portraits’2008, ‘Head shots’ 2000-02, ‘Murals’2010
and ‘Clowns’ 2003–04.
Contemplating the surface
value of the 56 large scale prints are mostly with women in various social
classes representing roles according to wealth and status clashing with the clown
images. This could make one ask if this
just another narcissistic self-obsessed artist playing a cheeky grown-up game
of dress ups? Is there any intentionality for striking the mainline vein of this
chronological time’s hedonistic obsession with outward appearances through
fashion and selfie culture? Is there
something deeper going one with the use of mockery and parody of these fictional
caricatures? Is she trying to highlight
the foolish pursuit of the vain and prideful generation of women fanatically
obsessed with physical and material appearances? Sherman’s images remain untitled and only numbered
and this gives a freedom for interpretation amongst the curatorial prose of the
exhibition. In the very least the
intention is clear that the combination of awkward and ugly challenge every
page of fashion print media ever produced for its viral conformity to sensual and
aesthetic values of perfection.
The advent of the digital
age and its impact is described by curator Eve Respini “Images are used where
common languages don’t exist, and the numerous interlinked digital networks
that move beyond fixed geographies and political boundaries offer unprecedented
ways to communicate.”[1]
There is a surpassing of language described by Respini which is extremely
applicable to the Society and Headshot Portraits. It is apparent that unattainable perfection
shovelled into generations of affluent females via digital means is in some way
toxic as is demonstrated by the garish artifice of these images. The constructed performative aspect of these
photos draws on the gender stereotypes gathered from the internet (or digital
network). Sherman cites inspiration for her Society portraits came from the
website of Brenda Dickson “Welcome to my home” a 1980’s soap opera star. It is important to realise how influential
this single digital transmission steered the artistic creativity of Sherman’s
Society portraits by including the actual commentary on the Brenda Dickson clip
Sherman states “she would say things like, ‘So, for blush you can do either
orange or pink…’[Laughs] it was just hilarious… And in the background is this
huge portrait of her; I was just astounded by the ego of the woman! That was
when I decided I wanted to make these kind of portraits.”[2]
Sherman has still managed
to keep her work within the prestige of the gallery even though her research
depends on the internet she has bypassed the trap of her images becoming
cheapened by their digital availability. Sherman’s Untitled #96 1981 sold at
Christies New York for $3.9 million being proof. Success was not always a given
as she was not recognised as a fine art photographer at the start of her career
when she sold a photograph for only $1000 due grouping in with documentary and
fine art photographers. As a result, her
sales were poor in the mid-eighties. When
Christie’s and Sotheby’s began classifying them under the ‘Contemporary Art’
auctions, circumstances changed and dramatically increased the value of her work.[3]
Sherman’s artistic process
has been refined since working with film as she describes in an interview “But
now that everything is digital it is so much easier for me. In the early days
it was a several-day process. I’d shoot using contact-sheet Polaroids, so you
couldn’t really tell the focus or colour. I’d shoot something, have to take off
all my make-up, then take the films to the lab and wait for three hours. I’d
come back with the contacts and then realise I had to re-shoot because it was
out of focus or something. Sometimes it would be wrong, and after six or seven
attempts I would just give up and move on to something else. Now that it’s all
digital I can see right away on the computer if something’s working or not and
make tweaks and changes.”[4]
Comparing the contemporary tilt of her more recent images in this show to her
previous analogue methodology there is a sense of loss of nostalgic freshness
and spontaneity. This is inevitable when
the electronic technology enables endless retakes and background choices. Ironically the attempt of the fashion houses
of Balenciaga and Chanel to straddle on the back of Sherman’s prestigious
reputation failed miserably to market their designer garments as desirable
merchandise using her name. Sherman bucks off the elitism of such garments with
props of plastic cups along with the intentional downplay of any semblance of
chic designer class using poses of blind drunken women. The designer clothing only serves to
highlight the absurdity of the women portrayed.
This is perfectly described by Gavin Butt as a co-option of radical art
practice to the commodified logic of capitalism, in regard to corporate
sponsorship and he asks what of critical culture if it comes increasingly and
narrowly to serve the interests of the market?[5]
In a way Sherman has become her own critic taking the intoxicating celebrity
status that she has been privileged with and using it as a mirror to highlight
the frivolity and contradiction of the “culturati, the ‘cultural mass,’ the
distribution sector of cultural production, for whom the shock of the old has
become the chic of the new” outlined by American sociologist Daniel Bell. Bell continues further to support Sherman’s
mockery of the elite by saying “Fad and
fashion is a tawdry rule of capitalism seen to trivialise the culture”.[6]
It could be said that Sherman’s corporate sponsorship did not get in the way of
pointing out specific trivial schemas that are usually left unsaid.
Sherman wanted to explore the stereotypical ‘has-been’s and wanna-be’s’ which
meant subversively turning mega fashion label Chanel into an awkward thrift
shop mockery through the series ‘Chanel’ 2010-12, it grew from a commission for
POP magazine insert in 2010. Hal
Foster’s claim about artist as ethnographer may be applicable to this niche of
Sherman’s white western affluent portrayal of women. This portrayal inside the cultural alterity that
is busy pointing to the other[7]in
this case the failed female nobody. Seen
as a screen becoming a trace where the image of the other is a projection
obscuring fact and fantasy.[8]
Sherman is dictating the individual identity formation as we know the images
have nothing of her personal self in only that she is female and directs the
performance making a study of this particular cultural ruse. Researching the approximate cost for a Balenciaga
Jacket ranging between $3000 and $5000 AUD only served to highlight how bravely
Sherman was able to be breaking all conventions with fashion photography’s
unrealistic aesthetics to create ‘really ugly pictures’[9]via
such coveted brand names.
The intentionality of Sherman’s deep philosophy
with feminism, gender and identity politics does not go further than the fact
that she is a woman having a voice in the contemporary artworld, professing in
an interview ‘Even though I’ve never actively thought of my work as feminist or
as a political statement, certainly everything in it was drawn from my
observations as a woman in this culture.’[10] Confirming the simplicity of the process for
her trail blazing career the conception of a photographic series can come from making
a crazy discovery at a flea market stall for a prop. For example her Clowns series 2003-2004,
Sherman ran with the idea from a ‘really old pair of pyjamas turned into a
clown costume’.[11] She is in the business of creating identities
which completely mask her own and the Clown series juxtaposes with the masks of
pancaked visages all through the remainder of the exhibition. Sherman commented
in an interview “Sometimes I want to put make-up on to make a character look
like they are different from me, but as if they are not wearing make-up. And
then there’s something like the clowns: that was really hard, because on one
level I was learning about clown make-up, but then I was also trying to look
like a different person underneath that
clown make-up. It was a real challenge.”[12]
Sherman highlights another element about the Clown series saying “Yeah, I like
that balance – that you could be painted to look like you’re happy and still
look like you’re sad underneath, or the opposite too. The more research I did
the more levels I saw. There are a lot of creepy, sad, different emotions that
I really like.”[13] Further evidence of her unintentionality is
her way of working with no preconceptions of what she wants, the character
emerges throughout the process and Sherman has described how it becomes
“trance-like” where something else takes over.[14]
Delving into Sherman’s childhood being the
youngest of five children with a nine-year gap she had an obsession for
dressing up as a child and her resultant adult artistic process becomes clear
and free of any theoretical paradigms. Sherman used a game of dress-ups to
consistently garner attention from her family and become somebody new to enable
a connection with her already established family. Establishing these connections with the
public is what drove Sherman into the top sliver of current international
artists as Australian Art Critic Terry Smith describes contemporary as ‘place
making, world picturing , and connectivity’ being the most common concerns of
artists while the challenge of art criticism is to distinguish precisely the
presence ‘in each artwork within the larger forces that are shaping this
present’.[15] The
curation of Sherman’s collection of works and coupled with the consideration of
the large scale application have managed to encourage clear contemplation of
current issues regarding fashion, aging & power struggles of feminine
identity. Contrary to complaints by contemporary
curators such as Julian Stallabrass that ‘language abuse is familiar to anyone
who has spent much time reading recent exhibition wall labels or catalogue
text’ many critics espouse the artist’s work is the focal point and ‘art speaks
for itself’[16] so it
is possible to avoid the ‘prolix use of quasi-theoretical language’[17]
by just avoiding the said elements presented in an exhibition. Curators and critics are both guilty of
alienating the audience through copious intellectualisms. The exhibition elements of catalogues, labels
and artworks are optional to the audiences of the gallery as with the advent of
today’s selective digital ‘curationism’[18]
being commonplace, it is to be expected that not all participants will desire
to research. Keeping an appreciation for art critical presentation maintained
within an institution seems necessary and allowing artists freedom to have
expression with ‘institutional critique’
and avoiding censorship is an ideal.[19] Therefore how does one avoid the trap of
trying to describe a smell with words while artworks by their very nature are
transient and not always a permanent fixture of the gallery or museum able to
be readily experienced. How personal can
an artwork become to then become offensive and censored although Sherman’s
various female representations may offend the women who are targeted, she has
managed to skate along the edges of acceptability with the use of tragic humour.
Representing a fictitious
life though carefully crafted personas draws parallels with the intrusive
nature of today’s digital social media and its influence on the psyche of the individual. The internet is cheaply curated with images
representing merely a surface value with no restraint toward society or
individuals measuring only on outward facades by drawing conclusions that they
are smiling in the photo so they must be having a happy life. The psychic distance that Sherman creates through
her work implies that you can never know the real Cindy Sherman. A tasty alternative is offered by the photographs
in this exhibition, but it will never satisfy with a true connection as is the
predicament of the digital interface of a phone or screen to the hundreds of
personas in an individual’s social media contact list. Sherman’s contemporary images can only serve to
highlight the quotidian sickness in various social structures with no cure for
these spiritually bereft and badly dressed buffoons. The overbearing large
scale of the images leaves no experience for eye candy as you are facing the
garish details of over-made, crepe skinned women and creepy wax faced clowns
forcing comparisons to a perverted feminine ideal and a conspiratorial
familiarity with the gender stereotypes expressed through social media and the
cult of celebrity. There is something
sadly preponderant about the hubristic human condition that Sherman raises for
inspection through this exhibition.
Bibliography
Butt, Gavin. 2005. The
Paradoxes Of Criticism. Blackwell Publishing.p1-9
Foster, Hal. 1996. “The Artist as Ethnographer”. The
Return Of The Real : The Avant-Garde At The End Of The Century. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.171-204
Marx, Leo. 1976.
"The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalism By Daniel Bell". Challenge 19
(4): 43-44. doi:10.1080/05775132.1976.11470240.
Respini, Eva. 2018. Art
In The Age Of The Internet. Boston, Mass.: The Institute of Contemporary Art.
Slater, Meghan. 2016.
"Cindy Sherman Embraces An Invitation From Fashion House Chanel - QAGOMA
Blog". QAGOMA Blog.
https://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au/cindy-sherman-embraces-an-invitation-from-fashion-house-chanel/.
Smith, Terry. 2016.
"After Institutional Critique: Curating As A Discursive
Practice". Journal Of Contemporary Art / Contemporary Art Centre Of
South Australia 45 (1): 6-10.
Smith, Terry. 2010.
"The State Of Art History: Contemporary Art". The Art Bulletin92
(4): 366-383. doi:10.1080/00043079.2010.10786119.
Stafford, Jerry. 2019.
"‘Do You Find Beauty In Horror?’". System Magazine. http://system-magazine.com/issue4/cindy-sherman-peter-philips/.
Stallabrass, Julian.
2013. "Rhetoric Of The Image". Artforum International 51
(7): 71-72.
Tomkins, Calvin. 2019.
"Cindy Sherman’S Secret Identities". The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/05/15/her-secret-identities.
"Untitled 1988,
(1988) By Cindy Sherman :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW". 2019. Artgallery.Nsw.Gov.Au.
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/371.1997/.
Wexler, Joshua. 2019. "Alterity". 2019. University
of Chicago. https://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/alterity.htm.
[1] (Eva Respini.
(2018). “No Ghost just a Shell”. Art in the age of the internet. Boston,
Mass.: The Institute of Contemporary Art, pg 18)
[2] (Jerry Stafford.
(2019). ‘Do you find beauty in horror?’.
http://system-magazine.com/issue4/cindy-sherman-peter-philips/ (accessed
Apr. 14, 2019))
[3] (Calvin
Tomkins, 2019. "Cindy Sherman’S Secret Identities". The New
Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/05/15/her-secret-identities. accessed Apr.
14, 2019)
[5] (Gavin Butt. 2005. The
Paradoxes Of Criticism. Blackwell Publishing.p1-9)
[6] (Leo Marx, 1976. "The Cultural
Contradictions Of Capitalism By Daniel Bell". Challenge 19 (4):
pg43-44.)
[7] (Foster, Hal. 1996. “The Artist as
Ethnographer”. The Return Of The Real : The Avant-Garde At The End Of The
Century.:pg171-204)
[8] (Joshua Wexler,2019. "Alterity".
https://csmt.uchicago.edu/glossary2004/alterity.htm.
[9]
(Meghan Slater. 2016. "Cindy Sherman Embraces An Invitation From Fashion
House Chanel - QAGOMA Blog". QAGOMA Blog.
https://blog.qagoma.qld.gov.au/cindy-sherman-embraces-an-invitation-from-fashion-house-chanel/.)
[10] ("Untitled 1988, (1988) By
Cindy Sherman :: The Collection :: Art Gallery NSW". 2019. Artgallery.Nsw.Gov.Au.
https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/371.1997/. 15 April,2019)
[12] (Ibid)
[13] (ibid)
[15] (Terry Smith. 2010. "The State Of Art History:
Contemporary Art". The Art Bulletin92 (4): 366-383.)
[16] (Terry Smith. 2016. "After Institutional Critique:
Curating As A Discursive Practice". Journal Of Contemporary Art /
Contemporary Art Centre Of South Australia 45 (1): 6-10)
[19] (Ibid.)
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