Cindy Sherman | Mannequins & Masks

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.