What Does Cindy Sherman Look Like?

Cindy Sherman as Cindy Sherman

When a reader left a tip asking the question in the headline, I laughed. The very question seems preposterous. Cindy Sherman, look like someone? Cindy Sherman can't look like anyone. Or rather, she looks like everyone.

Cindy has been around for most of my whole life in photography. I never quite "got" her work—even when I have it explained it to me in a way I grasp intellectually, I still don't quite get it. If I'm honest.

One thing that taught me, though, is that maybe it's not for me. It's a peculiar kind of egocentrism to think all art should be for us. Of course it isn't. Maybe Cindy reaches just the audience she ought to and that she seeks to, and I'm just not in it. That's no crime on her part or mine. The older I get, the less egotistically demanding of others I get, and, also, the more I forgive myself for all the potentially interesting things I don't engage with.

So much art, so little time.

I'll tell you one thing, though, she's the real deal. When I first became aware of her, which must have been in art school—she's only a few years older than I am—my knee-jerk reaction was to suspect that her schtick of being just another attention-grabbing gimmick. Wrong-O, Dektol-breath. No one can sustain such a rich career, varied yet consistent—not to mention remarkably unique—without being sincere and authentically motivated. My initial bratty wet-behind-the-ears insolence was gradually displaced by admiration and respect.

But one question for sure never occurred to me to ask...what does Cindy look like? The question itself must be existential art-world doublespeak! Heh.

Anyway, as you know I take Saturdays off, so on Fridays I try to leave you with something good to occupy your Saturday, in case it might be, for you, a lazy day in which you have some free time. Today it's Art:21's "Cindy Sherman in 'Transformation,'" from Season 5 of that wonderful series.

I enjoyed it so much I watched it twice. Hope you enjoy it too.

Mike

Book o' this Week:
Black in White America 1963–1965 by Leonard Freed, a new reprint of this classic from the Civil Rights era. I got to meet Leonard Freed once. <—This is a portal to Amazon; also available at the Book Depository for global delivery with free shipping.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

James Bullard (partial comment): "I don't 'get' her either but then I belong to the 'witness' tradition of photography and she's a conceptual artist. Her photographs are not about the subjects in the photographs. Her subjects are just a medium, a proprietary visual vocabulary to express her ideas. I don't get her work because I don't share or understand that visual vocabulary."

Rickard Grangården: "Surely that question has been answered ages ago.... :-) "

Mike replies: Great find, thank you! I love it. Never saw that before.

Daniel Speyer: "I don’t look for artist’s interviews or reading usually what they say about their art, but having said this it was interesting to see what my three favorites had to say—they being Hockney, Arbus, and Sherman.

—Sherman is talking about the mechanics (your link was the first time I heard/saw the [real?] Sherman).
—Hockney being interviewed in a (what do they call it: a coffee table book?) book is very intellectual.
—Arbus—well she committed suicide.

"I guess those are three extremes for talking about one's art. In no case, at the level of viewer, do they tell you about their art."

Kenneth Tanaka replies to Daniel: " Right on, Dan! Whenever you have a chance to hear an artist, or photographer, speak directly about their own work, grab it! Even if you don't like the work. Actually, especially when you don't like their work [I second that —MJ]. I have been very fortunate to have had such opportunities many times and it always enriches my understanding of the work. I may still not engage with their stuff but I feel I have a better understanding of why. The case of this Art:21 doc of Cindy Sherman is a good example. This was my first time hearing directly from her about her work. (My earlier encounter with her was largely social.) I still feel the work it kitschy but I understand its genesis much better.

"There are so few artists and photographers still living who affect our aesthetic trajectories or sensibilities. Even fewer can coherently discuss their work. Make time to see or meet with them if possible. If the Internet is the only way to do so, fine! But do it if you have any interest in maturing your appreciation and sensibilities."

Angela Weil: "How Cindy Sherman looks like? I always enjoyed her work as she presented quite a spectrum of the female experience. Now, a few years ago, a person very dear to me did a project as homage to Cindy Sherman—in B&W. I had the pleasure to assist in some of the setups and the costumes."

Mike replies: She did a great job. I really like that.

David Brown: "I only wish I could do something at the level of her work! Not 'her' work, mine, but at that level. Genius."

Stephen Cowdery: "I saw her 2012 retrospective (MoMA, Walker Art Center) and I wasn't expecting much but I was stunned and I am not usually impressed by staged photography. Nearly every image spoke to me, sometimes apparently in a foreign language, but I felt challenged. As David P. Goldman said: 'We may judge what is merely beautiful, but sublime art judges us, or better said, it challenges us to judge ourselves.'"

Dogman: "I've liked her work since 'Untitled Film Stills.' It's not the kind of photography I do but it's engaging and well done. I also like Crewdson's vignettes. Both make little mysteries without resolution."

hugh crawford: "When my friend Jamie Livingston lived in a loft on Fulton street in the early '80s I kept seeing this woman in the elevator who seemed really familiar but I couldn’t quit remember her from anywhere. Turned out that Cindy Sherman was the upstairs neighbor. I thought she sort of looked like Shirley MacLaine."

Ernest Zarate: "For me, what you describe is what I call letting go of expectations. As humans, we seem particularly determined to lay our expectations at the feet of others, and then get mightily offended when they fail to live up to those expectations. Expectations cover so many aspects of life: what we do, what we wear, what we eat, what we drive, religion, politics, sex... and so on. And those expectations, in my book, pave the long, torturous, and soul-sucking road to disappointment.

"A few decades ago, I realized that no one was put on Earth to live up to my expectations. Every person is free to make up their own life, without having to consult me first. I found this revelation to be quite liberating. For me, life is like going to a restaurant with your friends: each person orders what they like from the menu, without regard to what anyone else is ordering. If I order the salmon, and someone else orders a salad, and someone else wants to dive into a bowl of fresh strawberries, it matters not one whit—except to the person ordering it. We all sit down at the table, enjoy our unique meals, and the company we each bring. In truth, the only person Cindy Sherman’s work needs to satisfy is herself. That others (though not everyone) find value in her work is no doubt icing on her cake."

Zyni Moë: "Pretty sure people who do not ever have to obfuscate or hide their identity would find it hard to understand what Cindy Sherman has done. If you are American man (especially white American man), well you never really have to conceal who you are unless you are a criminal or something. We all sneer at you (not you specifically, at all Americans), but you come to us bearing money, nuclear weapons and sometimes even you pretend to high principles, so we accept you as you are. Unless you enjoy playing identity games, you do not need to play them.

"If you are, perhaps, female of Roma (Gipsy) background from Eastern Europe then things are very different. If you say you are romani, people will think you live in a vardo and ride coloured horses and that you are dirty and stupid. Perhaps they will try to help you escape from this imagined squalor, perhaps they will spit on you: certainly they will not accept that you just want to do maths which (despite being smelly and stupid) you are good at. If you tell people on the internet you are female and dare to be more clever than them you will get rape threats (yes, you will: I can show you them). And there is worse I will not say. So, if you will not give up, you hide. You wear masks, you invent characters and play at being them because being what you really are is somehow asking to be ignored or attacked. And that is how you make your way. And Cindy Sherman is interesting to people who must do these things, and what she does is a little more interesting than yet another macho photographer sticking his camera in people's faces."

Mike replies: Thank you for that. It really helps me see Cindy Sherman's work differently. (Your first paragraph reminded me of something my black freshman roommate told me in college: "the difference between you and me is that you think about race whenever you want to. I have to think about race all the time whether I want to or not." I've never forgotten that.)

Crabby Umbo: "I have to respond to Kenneth Tanaka and say I've made some of my biggest mistakes going to hear artists talk about work I admired, only to lose interest because the artist was less than expected. I now make it a policy to never go and listen to artists talk about their work, under that old art director's adage that '...if your work doesn't speak for itself, I don't need to hear you talk about it.' I remember going to a lecture by a photographer (who shall remain nameless), in the '90s, whose work was very out of the ordinary and dark, I thought one of the freshest things I'd seen in years! When I went to the lecture, I realized this person wasn't a weird troubled soul, but his work was all an MFA degree calculation; like he had a marketing crew planning the look to be 'different' (he didn't, but...). I came home and sold my books by him. I've never been to an artist lecture since then...."

Comments

[Kenneth Tanaka]

I have seen Cindy Sherman in-person once some years ago. The photo on her Wikipedia profile page most resembles my memory of her appearance.

Sherman is just a few months older than me...very much a contemporary. I can't say I'm engaged by her work as a photographer, although I do salute her (assistants') technical prowess at constructing her conceptual confections so skillfully. I put her in the same group as David LaChapelle, Greg Crewdson, et.al. Not photographers per se, just artists using photography as a medium.

As an artist, however, I do greatly admire her creativity and stamina in the marketplace. Her visual puns and clever tricks have certainly tattooed many of her images in my mind, even though I don't engage with them

[Crabby Umbo]

Gotta say, I never "got" Cindy either, I always was wowed by the idea that the art world was buying that stuff! I decided to cut her some slack after her self-deprecating turn in John Waters film "Pecker".

[James Bullard]

I don't 'get' her either but then I belong to the 'witness' tradition of photography and she's a conceptual artist. Her photographs are not about the subjects in the photographs. Her subjects are just a medium, a proprietary visual vocabulary to express her ideas. I don't get her work because I don't share or understand that visual vocabulary. It is a language I have no interest in learning.

[Andrew Molitor]

More or less immediately after Untitled Film Still and the Bus Riders, Sherman hit on a lighting technique that flattens her face out completely. Then she paints on whatever contours she likes.

She still acts.. a little. But not like she did in the early days.

She's playing dress-up and letting the critics struggle, which they gamely do. Is that "for real?" It seems to be real enough?

[Daniel Speyer]

I don’t look for artist’s interviews or reading usually what they say about their art, but having said this it was interesting to see what my three favorites had to say—they being Hockney, Arbus and Sherman.
— Sherman is talking about the mechanics (your link was the first time I heard/saw the [real?] Sherman).
— Hockney being interviewed, in a (what do they call it: a coffee table book?) book is very intellectual.
— Arbus—well she committed suicide.
I guess those are three extremes for talking about ones art. In no case, at the level of viewer, do they tell you about their art.

[Peter Komar]

Not, Not, Not my style or do I have interest in seeing anymore of her work, yes I did check her work out. But I give her a Ton of credit for her fame and fortune, good for her. I guess you can make the argument that everything has been photographed and some of it done very well and a lot not done very well. Cindy had a brainstorm and it has clicked with many in the art world, just my 2 cents worth.

[ChrisH]

I enjoy her creativity. She is a visual artist with something to say. There is a story and at least one character in her images. Not many photographers could do what she does. Anybody can walk the streets and shoot hundreds of photos hoping for that one lucky shot. Sherman creates her lucky shots. With the longevity and popularity of her work, she has carved out her place in photographic history. Whether you like her or not, she’s got style, talent and financial success in a field where only a very small percentage of participants ever succeed.

[Anton Wilhelm Stolzing]

I so much agree with you. I did not get it neither, but this does absolutely NOT mean that her work is not good. I remember when I was a little child, accustomed to the nice sounds of Mozart, when I heard a recording of Boris Godunov. I nearly vomited. Guess what: It is now one of my favourite operas. I just was not accustomed to the Russian melodic then.

[I know what you mean. When my brother first played "Mingus Ah Um" for me, one of the great masterpieces of jazz, I felt there was something deeply wrong about it--it troubled me--and I also felt sure that it was "difficult" music. Now I can't even recover those feelings. It's among (many) favorite jazz albums, one I thoroughly enjoy at every rehearing, a familiar old friend, tuneful and beautiful. And I just cannot even comprehend any more how I once considered it "difficult"! --Mike]

[John Krumm]

I would call her a kind of very skilled caricaturist, who at their best are equal to any artist working with human subjects, drawing out certain truths. But she works in the fiction world, so in a way her creations are like the paintings of Norman Rockwell. I was going to compare her to a skilled photoshop user who just happens to work in the physical world, but I think it's more than that.

[Grant]

"What Does Cindy Sherman Look Like?" She looks quite likeable and very normal for an "artist".

Do I get her work? Yes, but not the prices that it commands.

Do I like it? Not really.

Do I admire Cindy Sherman? Hell Yes! Cindy has found a way to save thousands in model fees.

[richardl]

farmers or hunters..
knives or spoons

[Kalli]

I never "got" Cindy Sherman either until me and a photographer friend took in a huge retrospective of hers at Fotografiska in Stockholm. We were both wowed by her work.

This other time I went to see an exhibition of Scholler portraits and the one portrait that, to me, was the absolutely most interesting one of them all was the portrait of Cindy Sherman. I stared at it for a good while and as I walked away I mused that finally I had seen the "real" Cindy Sherman.

Moments later I understood that I was fooling myself. Is there even a photograph of the "real" Cindy Sherman?

[Ken]

Thanks for featuring the comment by Zyni Moe.

[David Bennett]

Liked her stuff straight away, and was pleased to have found her. But then the prosthetics grew wilder, and though some photographs I saw in an exhibition of her recent stuff in London just before lockdown were kind of appealing, nothing recent comes close to the emotion in scenes like this, in my opinion.

Untitled Film Still #48 (1979)

[robin]

Sherman is amazing, immediately speaking to me when I saw her work decades ago. What's there to "get"? It's obvious (as the Au Pairs sang).

Thanks to Zyni Moë for making it real.