such as Vito Acconci, Eleanor Antin, and Adrian
Piper, who used their physical presence in their
work of the 1970s. Sherman’s photographs, how-
ever, evoke a distinctly ‘‘postmodern’’ sensibility,
in that her performances as various character
‘‘types’’ do not reflect the artist’s sense of her
‘‘self,’’ so much as they call attention to issues
within contemporary culture and society. In this
respect, she joined contemporaries such as Barbara
Kruger, Sherrie Levine, and Richard Prince, who
similarly used photography to mimic and critique
the images and messages presented in the mass
media. In theFashionseries, for example, she pre-
sents herself as a variety of women who appear
alternately disheveled, depraved, or simply ridicu-
lous in opposition to glamorous fashion photo-
graphs familiar to us from magazines. Similarly,
Sherman transforms herself beyond recognition
through the use of makeup and other forms of
disguise in her 1985Fairy Talesseries, focusing
on the darker aspects of these children’s stories,
which often are frightening and macabre.
Despite the disturbing and often grotesque sub-
ject matter in Sherman’s work from the late 1980s
to the present, her pictures are always rendered in a
rich and lush palette of colors that lends an odd
beauty to the unsettling scenes. In ‘‘Untitled #175’’
(1987) from herDisastersseries (1986–1989), for
example, an all-over pattern with decaying or
half-eaten foodstuffs, vomit, and other refuse
bears an affinity to the abstract painting style of
Jackson Pollock. The viewer’s revulsion at the sight
of the trash is offset both by the cool blue light that
bathes the scene and by the vision of Sherman in
the mirrored lens of the discarded pair of sun-
glasses, an image that is at once frightening and
comic. This tension between the visually appealing,
the humorously absurd, and the darkly provocative
and upsetting dominates later series such as theSex
Pictures and the Horror and Surrealist photo-
graphs. In this work, Sherman combines body
parts in fantastically impossible conglomerations,
constructs foreboding and eerie netherworlds, and
alters and contorts gruesome masks while retaining
her skillful composition in each picture.
In 1997, Sherman made an independent feature
film titledOffice Killer, a macabre comedy about a
misfit at a corporate office who successively kills
various co-workers and arranges them in a grue-
some tableaux in her basement. The film marked a
curious foray into the mainstream of popular cul-
ture for an artist whose work draws heavily on the
history of cinema. Recent photographs have varied
from her 1999 series of black-and-white images
that resemble theSex Picturesin their often violent
depictions of doll parts and mannequin figures in
disturbing positions and situations. The more mod-
est scale and return to the black-and-white of the
Untitled Film Stillslent the works a unique inti-
macy and departed from the more spectacularly
sized work that characterized her previous series.
Sherman’s series of images of women from 2000
focused on various social types, from the plastic
surgery–heavy socialite to the aging hippie earth
mother, drawing out the more disturbing physical
attributes of each type.
Sherman’s crowning accomplishment, perhaps,
is her dynamic transformation of photography
from a medium known for its ability to capture
moments from real life to a vehicle for the presen-
tation of rich fantastic worlds that make incisive
comments on contemporary society and culture.
This contribution to artistic practice is making its
presence felt in the work of today’s artists, which
betrays the strong influence of her impulse toward
making photographs happen, as opposed to taking
them from spontaneous events as they happen in
time. Thus, Sherman’s ongoing career, as well as
the continuation of her legacy by younger and
emerging artists, both establishes her reputation
as one of the most important artists of the past 50
years and guarantees the spread of her influence on
future generations.
DominicMolon
Seealso: Bellmer, Hans; Constructed Reality;
Deconstruction; Feminist Photography; History of
Photography: the 1980s; Kruger, Barbara; Pin-Up
Photography; Postmodern; Prince, Richard; Repre-
sentation and GenderBiography
Born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, 1954. Attended the State
University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, B.A. 1976.
Received National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1977;
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, 1983;
Skowhegan Medal for Photography, Maine, 1989; Larry
Aldrich Foundation Award, Connecticut, 1993; John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation award, 1995;
Wolfgang-Habn-Preis (Gesellschaft fur Moderne Kunst
am Museum Ludwig), 1997; Goslar Kaierring Prize The
Hasselblad Foundation, 1999. Associated with Metro Pic-
tures, New York, 1980. Living in New York City.Individual Exhibition
1979 Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center; Buffalo, New York
1980 Contemporary Arts Museum; Houston, Texas
The Kitchen; New York
1981 Saman Gallery; Genoa, Italy
Young/Hoffman Gallery; Chicago, IllinoisSHERMAN, CINDY