Cindy Sherman - Retrospective (Art Photo Ebook)

Sex Pictures have been compared with the Poupee series of
otographs by Hans Bellmer (figure 9).
During the 1930s, Bellmer proiced
photographs of monstrous images of bulbous bodies he constructed
m doll parts. As strange depictions of the fragmented body they
also relate to the work of the French artist Pierre Molinier. From the mid-
M
160s until his suicide in 1976, Molinier photographed himself in
garters, stockings, and other fetishistic accoutrements (figure 10). At times
he used the resulting images as collage elements combined in photographs
of autoeroticism by his duplicated selves or in compositions that
present a contorted body with multiple legs. The correlations between
Sherman and Molinier extend to their working method. Both artists photograph
themselves in the privacy of their own studios, transformed
by clothing into other personas, which then become public. The impetus
for their role-playing, however, is vastly different. Sherman is
motivated by the external influence of the media, and Molinier was
moved by his own desire.
Horror and Surrealist Pictures, 1994-96
The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a
stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in
detecting the cheat.
And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around.
But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was
dappled in blood—and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled
with the scarlet horror.
—Edgar Allan Poe 4
In the subsequent group of works, Sherman returned to images of horror,
which she had begun with the Fairy Tales series. In Untitled #312
(plate 145)
she continues to use the artificial body parts of the Sex Pictures
to create a monstrous family, and in Untitled #302 (plate 138) and
Untitled #308 (plate 141), she combines various parts to create a monster
and an exquisite corpse, respectively. She eventually changes her focus
from the full
body to the face, retaining only the masks from the barrage
of artificial body parts she had used in the Sex Pictures. Shot up close,
these images present an array of manipulated masks. Untitled #30 s
(plate
140) depicts a pair of masks that appear to be kissing. In the six-work
series
Untitled #314 A-F (plates 143, 144), she slices and reconfigures
masks into gruesome, red visages that seem to include exterior and interior
views of faces. This layering of surfaces appears in several of these
works, as in
Untitled #316 (plate 147), in which a scarred doll's face is
partially covered by smoother sections. At times the layering suggests that
there is an actual human underneath the disguise, as in Untitled #317
(plate 148). Sherman in fact appears in some of the works but also
combines various masks in others. For the first time, in works such as
Untitled #303 (plate 139)
and Untitled #311 (plate 142), she employs photographic
techniques such as double exposure that were favored by