Cindy Sherman | Mannequins & Masks

December 18th, 2009

Surveying some of the props she’s used over the years, including masks and mannequin parts, artist Cindy Sherman demonstrates how she uses stand-ins to gauge the focus and composition of her images.

In self-reflexive photographs and films, Cindy Sherman invents myriad guises, metamorphosing from Hollywood starlet to clown to society matron. Often with the simplest of means—a camera, a wig, makeup, an outfit—Sherman fashions ambiguous but memorable characters that suggest complex lives lived out of frame. Sherman’s investigations have a compelling relationship to public images, from kitsch (film stills and centerfolds) to art history (Old Masters and Surrealism) to green-screen technology and the latest advances in digital photography.

Cindy Sherman is featured in the Season 5 (2009) episode Transformation of the Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century television series on PBS.

VIDEO | Producer: Wesley Miller & Nick Ravich. Interview: Susan Sollins. Camera: Joel Shapiro. Sound: Roger Phenix. Editor: Lizzie Donahue & Paulo Padilha. Artwork Courtesy: Cindy Sherman.


One Response to “Cindy Sherman | Mannequins & Masks”

  1. Halvard Halvorsen’s tumblelog » Cindy Sherman | Mannequins & Masks | Art21 Blog on December 18, 2009 8:37 pm

    [...] Cindy Sherman | Mannequins & Masks | Art21 Blog This entry was written by hal and posted on 2009-12-19 at 0:36 and filed under Url. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Tweets for 2009-12-18 [...]

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