Cindy Sherman as a Famous American Photographer and Film Director - Essay Example

Fatima AL Mahr (03724704) Jennifer O’Keeffe Section: PH 101- 01 Photo History & concepts Cindy Sherman Introduction Cindy Sherman is a famous American photographer and film director who got immense fame after she introduced new ideas of conceptual portraits and artistic photography. She was born in 1954 and lived as a different child because she took interests in art work, drawing, composition, alluring pieces of drawings and social photography. Living in the town of Huntington of long island, she lived a life of normal girl. Her life took a new turn when she got admission in State University of Buffalo (Sollins et al, 221). Her initial interests, engrossments and enthusiasm took a divergence when she immersed herself into fine arts, rigorous works of drawing and complex paintings. She reflected that complex ideas are already found in nature and there is not much need to depict the unnecessary conceptual approaches of nature. What was evident from her thoughts that she was taking interest in photography. All she had to do was to get a good quality camera and learn some skills about technicalities in order to dive into the field of photography. She says that; “While I used to draw, I thought that I am just copy pasting the art works of others and there is no need for these extra efforts. The admirable and bewitching works of art can be paralleled by using a camera and capturing the enticing and dazzling scenes all around us.” (Hattenstone) After discerning upon these considerations, she finally decided to switch her field and she adopted photography as her permanent profession. Works and Ideas She pursued the field of photography for the rest of her stay at Buffalo. To add fuel to her already inflaming avidity to master the works of photography, someone met her who changed the future course of her professional life. His name was Robert Longo who was the fellow artists with her at the university. She found that she was not the only one thinking upon capturing the beguiling scenes instead of working on complex art works and paintings. Together they started to establish a work space where they could depict their works and skills of photography to further provoke the hidden talents of their mates and colleagues. The name of the multiple workspaces were said as “hall walls” and “independent artists” where Sherman gathered some more artists like Charles Clough and Longo worked in order to expand the works of photography and study it in immense details. The exhibits were placed openly so that all those students who are thinking about the profession of photography but are hesitant about joining it can measure the scope. Untitled films stills were the most well known works of Cindy which were the result of her initiative taken after the graduation from State University. She moved to Manhattan and started to take pictures of herself using photography. There were around one hundred and thirty photographs of her which were the initial depiction of her skills after graduation and they are very much important in deciding the course of her future in the field of still photography She formed an artist group so that she can expand the concept of still photography. There was a massive initial criticism on the group as people were strange to the concept of still photography as a profession. The initial cost of all the equipment was sustained by the new artist group but the results of their efforts paid very soon. Sherman and her fellow artists from the group were thinking out of the box and this has been the state of the art works of the every artist who thought and worked on something out of the scratch and on something that has never been implemented before. She introduced the concept of “depersonalizing”, the images in her first depiction of photography. The conventions before her first release were that any still image taken from camera must have the name or introduction of person that will define him or her to the viewer. Cindy used the caption named as “untitled” knowingly in her photographs so that the viewers can see the images in generic form rather than just limiting the scope of the image to the person name or credentials. This was very much appreciated by the artists of still photography. This also gave rise to new ideas in abstract art with new dimension of photography. In her initial works and depictions, she characterized herself and there were different pictures of her in wigs, different cultural dresses, hairstyles and unconventional dresses (Sherman, 63). The first outlet she got was in 1981 when a local magazine Art forum proposed her to be the central artist for their future issues. Cindy Sherman started to work hard on her images and there was a massive public talk about the new piece of art works in town. No doubt, this initial opportunity was captured by Cindy and she became popular within very less time after the publishing of her art works. Sherman’s famous pink robe series was also rejected by the editor of the magazine because of the policy issues and the editor said that these picture series can be taken in the wrong sense. This gave rise to another twist in the thought process and dynamics of working for Cindy. She came up with a new idea of conceptual portraits and left all the endeavors and crafts of personalization. She started to work on this novel idea. The later works in late eighties to early nineties were altogether different from trademark Cindy Sherman’s endeavors. The new series were named as disasters and fairy tales. She used prosthetic body parts and analogies to show herself as an artist working in twentieth century. In 1992, Cindy started a new series of her photographic depictions and this time it was something explicit that faced some censorship. The series was later known as “sex pictures” in which she used dolls, toys and prosthetic body parts to inculcate the concept of sex images and there were many close ups involved. This series was very much popular among the youth and that is why Sherman continued to work on this series for a longer period of time with much frequent improvements. Important art works of Cindy Sherman include works that are placed in Tate Gallery under the caption of works of Sherman. Similarly, many art works are placed in DC museum of modern arts, Metropolitan Museum of Arts and sciences. Apart from these, the art works are also placed in Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, Madison square garden museum of modern arts also hosts the pictures and photographic works of this great artist. The art houses of Chicago, Los Angeles and Buffalo also gave importance to the works of Cindy Sherman and they remain a centre of interests for the public all over the place. Along with America her art works are also making place in international museums liked in Australia, France and Mexico. Awards and Acknowledgements As an acknowledgement to the services of this great artist, in 1981, she was regarded as “artist in work” in her hometown. In 1995, she was awarded with the prestigious award of Mc Arthur fellowship also known as genius awards and this was a great achievement for her that gave her self confidence about her public support (Rosenblum, 372). Larry foundation award in 1993, Guild hall award of academy and Hasselblad Award given to her in 1999 are a very few accolades that were given to Cindy Sherman in order to recognize her great services and ministrations to the world of art. She also made her name in the field of film direction. Bibliography Top of Form Top of Form Top of Form Hattenstone, Simon. "Cindy Sherman: Me, Myself and I." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 14 Jan. 2011. Web. 23 Dec. 2012. Rosenblum, Naomi. A History of Women Photographers. New York: Abbeville Press Publishers, 2010. Print. Sherman, Cindy, and Francesco Stocchi. Cindy Sherman. Milan: Electa, 2007. Print. Sollins, Susan, Marybeth Sollins, and Wesley Miller. Art:21: Art in the Twenty-First Century. New York: Art21, 2010. Print. Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Bottom of Form Read More