A Brief Summary
of Cindy Sherman's Work


Untitled Film Still #6, 1977
1975-early 1980s: Black and white "Film Stills" made up the first series in Cindy Sherman's oeuvre; in photo after photo Sherman poses as an almost-recognizable character from an almost-recognizable film. This series was followed by color photographs of Sherman, again in various female "roles," and then by what Rosalind Krauss terms the "Centerfolds." All of these images play with the fictive, stereotypical portraits of femininity that saturate our culture and media, and implicitly question whether any identity can lie outside of representation. As well, the formal elements of the photographs bring into play the complexity of the operation of the gaze.


Untitled #138, 1984
1983-1984: Sherman's fashion photos, which again take her as a model, are overtly parodic, disrupting expectations of the physical form and (re)presentation of fashion models, and thus emphasizing the dominance of certain normative icons of femininity.


Untitled #140, 1985
1985-1991: This series encompasses what Krauss terms "Disasters and Fairytales," the "disgust pictures," and the "Civil War" series. These deal overtly with elements of "abjection," depicting both metamorphosed and mutated figures, and disintegrated/wounded bodies mingled with various fluid and abject substances. While Sherman is present in some of the photos, focus shifts to the various props, and the prosthetic bodies that will also feature in the mannequin pictures. In this project, I consider selected works of this series in relation to Butler and Kristeva, contemplating the role of materiality, substance, and disgust in the construction, maintenance, and understandings of bodily and subjective boundaries.


Untitled #197, 1989
1988-1990: Sherman's History Portraits again engage parody, this time in a recrafting of the "high" portrait art of the great masters. Once more, Sherman takes center stage, employing make-up and prostheses in her re-presentation of the male and female subjects of art. In this project, I focus upon those portraits which represent the maternal body, often in conjunction with a breastfeeding child, and I relate these to Kristeva's essay, "Motherhood According to Giovanni Bellini," which investigates the reification and sublimation of the maternal figure enacted in selected paintings of the Madonna and Child.


Untitled #259, 1992
1992: The "mannequin pictures," also known as the "sex" pictures, depict the often violent, always dramatic, juxtaposition of mannequin limbs, and often construct scenes of apparent copulation or violation. Once again, in terms of my project, these link to issues of subjectivity as related to bodily surfaces and the delimitation of bodily boundaries.

While I have not considered Sherman's more recent work in any
depth, a sample of it can be found at the Offshore Gallery Walk (also listed below).

Links to
Cindy Sherman Sites

Cindy Sherman Untitled
Offshore (Gallery): Cindy Sherman
The Eli Broad Family Foundation: Cindy Sherman
Steven Shaviro's Doom Patrols. Chapter Seven: Cindy Sherman
Interview with Steven Shaviro
Cindy Sherman: Galleries and Recent Exhibitions
"Retaining the Element of Chance": Interview with Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman: Interactive Space
NB: This "Interactive Space" is part of Site of Convergence: Autobiography and Postructuralism. There are several Sherman photos, and commentaries upon her work in poststructural terms, but the poststructural nature of the site's design might mean you can't find them all by any direct route, but simply by exploring the various links. Other entry points include Entering the Project and Interactive Space Definition.