Cindy Sherman | Untitled Film Still #35
This black-and-white photograph features the artist dressed as a 1950s housewife, standing in a somewhat dilapidated home interior in front of a door, near which coats hang from a hook on the wall. At the bottom of the door are several scuff marks, perhaps indicating that the housewife had over a period of time used her feet to open and close the door while her hands were full of laundry or busy with other domestic tasks. Sherman, dressed in a dress and apron with a kerchief on her head, stands with her body turned toward the left of the frame and her hands on her hips, a determined expression on her face and her eyes looking directly off of the right side of the frame.
This photograph comes from Sherman's series of Untitled Film Stills (1977-1980), in which she recreated 69 still images from Hollywood, film noir, and art house films, placing herself in the position of the female subject (acting as femme fatale, starlet, housewife, vamp, sexy librarian, working girl, etc.). Rather than being self-portraits, Sherman's Untitled Film Stills seek to open a dialogue about stereotypical representations of women in the media. Although, read together, the images show a variety of roles that women are permitted to take on in the media, they also reveal the limits of these predetermined roles. As exemplified by Untitled Film Still #35, a woman's place is often confined to the domestic sphere, where she is expected to also maintain herself as sexy and alluring to satisfy male fantasies. Sherman says of the series "I was really torn between an infatuation with those periods and feeling like I should hate them, because those kinds of role models, and those structures those artificial devices that women were expected to fit themselves into, like bras and girdles. [...] I also wanted to show that the characters themselves were as confused as I was, and frustrated by the roles that they were being forced to play". Seen from its first exhibition as an inherently feminist work, Sherman and her photographic practice are now a touchstone for visual artists interested in the representation of women in twentieth and twenty-first century media. Drawing on her identity as a young woman, the Untitled Film Stills assert Sherman's agency over the stereotypical roles expected of her, and the ability of female artists to represent themselves. This artistic strategy is one that she has continued as she grew older: for example she has drawn on the role of the aging female performer encapsulated by the fading grand dame of Hollywood's golden age. Throughout Sherman's practice, her experience and identity as a woman is foregrounded and used as the guiding impetus.
Gelatin Silver Photograph - Museum of Modern Art, New York
https://www.theartstory.org/movement/identity-politics/artworks/
