Cindy Sherman - Retrospective (Art Photo Ebook)

Movies, Monstrosities,
rne surrealists. Rather than customarily manipulating the objects she
and Masks: Twent) Years
of < ind) shcrman photographs, in these works she uses the technology ot the camera to
manipulate the image.
Works such as Untitled #326 (plate 151) resemble frames from a film.
In these photographs, disturbed looking characters bathed in vivid, deep
tones gaze at the viewer in a menacing or maniacal way. Sherman
has stated that these recent works are related to the horror film she directed,
Office Killer, which is scheduled
'5
for release in late 199". The
film is
about a magazine editor, Dorine, who accidentally kills an office
worker. As more murder ensues, Dorine begins to bring home the
bodies. In a scenario familiar to Sherman, she "sets up this tableau with
them, sort of creating her ideal office. She rearranges some of the people.""
7
Dorine can thus be seen as a stand-in for Sherman and another of
her self-transformations.
From the Untitled Film Stills to an actual film and works that inspired it,
Sherman's career has come full circle. The myriad masks and guises
she dons allow her to undergo transformations that explore the workings
of representation. That Sherman uses herself or surrogates in all of her
work is
significant, as we track her pursuit for a unified self-image, only to
discover the futility of such a search. From her earliest pictures, Sherman
has played to our desire. The allure of the Untitled Film Stills continues to
her more recent images of disgust and horror, which she presents in
full-color richness, attracting and repulsing our gaze.