“Underneath a picture there is always another picture.” (1)This was the philosophy of Douglas Crimp, organizer of the Pictures exhibition in New York 1977. Crimp and the Pictures Artists were part of the Postmodernism Movement that believed that there was no originality left in the world. One of the ways in which they dealt with this idea was to appropriate images in order to recontextualize the narrative and rebel against authority. Postmodernism was a reaction to the Modernists ideologies and the formal structures to which they were bound. The movement challenged perceptions which allowed for female artists like Sherry Levine, Cindy Sherman, and Barbara Kruger, to have a voice.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #58, 1980. Gelatin silver print, 20.3 x 25.4 cm, edition 1/10. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,l Gift, Ginny Williams 97.4611(image source)
Cindy Sherman was a conceptual artist who took portraits of herself in various costumes and settings that emphasized the clichéd gender roles of women in film in order to take back the female form. She used her own image to play the stereotypical B-movie heroine. The above photo is #58 in her Untitled Film Stills series where she is playing the role of an innocent young woman dominated by the towering big city. She is gazing away with a vulnerable expression at an unknown object or person out of frame. There is a feeling of danger that she elicits through camera angles, expression, and voyeuristic setting. It’s an exaggeration of the female role in movies, but by making herself both photographer and model she is re-gaining control over the female form that for so long was exploited by men in the film industry. She was appropriating cinematic tropes and through her hyper-focused snapshots she was exploring the concepts of identity, sexuality, and femininity. (2)
By recycling various images from graphic and commercial art to television and film, Postmodern artists were able to reframe the narrative and create their own visual dialog. Cindy Sherman was one artist who made use of film stills in order to bring awareness to the feminist struggles. She was not just reclaiming images, but she was reclaiming the female body. Other artists of this genre used appropriation to represent a shift in attitude about authority and societal structures, but the singular theme that repeats during the movement is that “underneath a picture there is always another picture.”
Sources
1. Gemmel, Mallory, “Postmodernism, The Pictures Generation, and Feminist Critique,” in Artshelp.net, accessed September 29, 2021, https://www.artshelp.net/art-theory-series-appropriation-part-two/.
2. Owen, Samantha Rosemary, “Gender and Vision Through the Lens of Cindy Sherman and the Pictures Generation,” in Scholarworks, accessed September 29, 2021, https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1022&context=hcoltheses.
I love Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, so it is always a pleasure to see another one of those.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the statement about a picture existing behind every new picture. However, I don't think that Postmodernists were exactly right that there is no originality left, because creating a different approach to something, or seeing it through a different point of view, requires originality.
What do you think?
In my opinion Cindy Sherman's approach to the portrayal of women in B-movies is quite original. One thing that I love about the Untitled Film Stills is that they are not from any specific film, so everyone can interpret for themselves what film it could be.
For example, while I do think that in a film which this photo represents it is very probable that the female hero would be vulnerable and innocent, looking at the picture I get the feeling that the woman portrayed is not helpless. Of course, it can be the knowledge that it is actually Cindy Sherman, who definitely isn't a flat character, but this changes my view of the character she portrays here.
Even clichés can sometimes be portrayed in an interesting way, and there always can be an interesting plot twist.
Thanks for sharing!
Zuzanna
I find the way you organize your post to be very inspirational. Cindy Sherman was a conceptual artist, could you elaborate a little bit more on conceptual? It was interesting, from what I remember in class about postmodernism they believed that there is no originality left. To a certain extent I do agree that it is entirely a whole lot of originality nowadays. However I also agree that sometimes doing A retelling Gives us an entirely new perspective of the existing piece. Overall it was a good read, thank you so much for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you described not only the photo but the reason that she chose to do this series of images. The series itself really fits into the idea of appropriation yet she is taking back the power and creating a space for herself in the art the is uniquely hers. Perhaps you could talk about why she chose to do the female image instead of doing piece on authority like other artists of the time?
ReplyDelete