CINDY SHERMAN, Exams of Photography

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CINDY SHERMAN

TEACHERS’ STUDY GUIDE

FALL 2019

Cover Image Untitled Film Still #

CONTENTS

Program Information and Goals 1.

Background to the Exhibition—Cindy Sherman 2.

Preparing your students: Nudes in Art 3.

Artist Background 4.

Artist Information Sheet 7.

Student Worksheet 8.

PRE- AND POST-VISIT ACTIVITIES

1. PRE-VISIT ACTIVITY: About the Artist (intermediate/secondary students) 6.

2. PRE- VISIT ACTIVITY: That’s me! (younger ages) 9.

3. PRE-VISIT ACTIVITY: Movie Press Kit for Untitled Film Stills (all levels) 12.

4. PROJECT EXTENSION: Untitled Film Stills (secondary students) 14.

5. PRE-VISIT ACTIVITY: First Impressions (all levels) 16.

6. PRE/POST VISIT ACTIVITY: Character Portraits (all levels) 20.

Vocabulary 24.

Resources 25.

School Program Sponsors 26.

The exhibition will include the complete Untitled Film Stills, a series of 70 black-and-white pho- tographs using Sherman herself as the model, and aimed at subverting stereotypes of women in media and planting the seeds of all later work development.

THE EXHIBITION

Cindy Sherman

Land Acknowledgment

Cindy Sherman takes place on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), S ḵ w x̱ wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, who have never surrendered their rights and title to their lands and waters.

“I am trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me.” —Cindy Sherman 1

Cindy Sherman is Canada’s first retrospective of the American performance art and photography pioneer Cindy Sherman in more than twenty years. In collaboration with London’s National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition features more than 170 works by the acclaimed artist, including a number of works from the Vancouver Art Gallery’s permanent collection, rarely seen photographs and showcasing selections from every major photographic series Sherman has produced. Although it is always Sherman who appears in the photographs, the works are not self-portraits. Sherman is performing roles captured in photographs that explore outward appearances, how we construct our identity and our persistence to attach meaning to how other people look. Sherman is fascinated with the nature of stereotypes and the relationship between appearance and reality. Except for a general introduction to each series, the exhibition doesn’t explain Sherman’s photographs. And since she does not title her work, instead just giving each photograph a progressive number, her work presents an invitation to the viewer to look deeper at the photographs and to ask Why this persona? Why do these characters look the way they do? What is their story?—thereby letting viewers make up their own minds about what they think it all means. The tour does not focus on images containing nudity, but students may see some images of the nude body as they walk through this exhibition. It can be helpful to talk with students beforehand about images of the nude in art, and to encourage them to examine their own responses to the work and to think about why an artist might choose to include a nude body in a work of art.

1 John Waters, “A Conversation with Cindy Sherman,” in Cindy Sherman, edited by Eva Respini

(New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2012), 69.

PREPARING YOUR STUDENTS: Nudes in Art

A good place to begin is simply to inform students that some of the works of art they will see when they visit the Gallery will contain images of nude bodies. People who visit the Gallery have all kinds of different responses to these images. Some people laugh, others feel embarrassed or uncomfortable. All of these responses are normal. But why? Why is the body so humorous and/or embarrassing? Ask the students whether they fall into hysterical laughter when they are in the shower or bath. Probably not. Part of the surprise of seeing a nude figure in a museum is just that: we are accustomed to our unclothed bodies only in private. To see one in public is a shock. Artists know this too. In showing the nude body, they remind us that the body can mean many things.

Nudity can be a symbol of:

• Privacy: The artist observes a very private moment when the person in the artwork is alone or with someone he or she loves.
• Innocence: Many Christian religious images produced over the last five hundred years include images of angel figures as nude babies, and the Christ child is often depicted nude. Like all babies, these figures are innocent, indifferent to their nudity.
• Bravery: When Michelangelo sculpted the famous statue of David, he spoke of David’s nudity as a symbol of bravery. David faced a giant without any protection on his body, relying on his faith and his skill to keep him safe.
• Vulnerability: Nudity can represent a lack of defence—a person who has nothing and has nowhere to hide.

What are you wearing? Another way to approach this topic is to think about clothing instead of nudity. What do clothes tell us about a person? Clothing can send messages about:

• the time in history,
• age and culture,
• wealth and style,
• the wearer’s profession,
• stereotypes and expectations.

In 1972, Sherman enrolled at SUNY Buffalo State College as a painting major. She failed the required photography class due to difficulties with the technical side. Later on, however, she took another photography course while at school with Barbara Jo Revelle, who told her to just take pictures and not worry about the technical aspect. No longer preoccupied with technical perfection, Sherman switched her major from painting to photography.

Cindy Sherman has always been interested in experimenting with different identities. Her goal is not to impersonate particular people but to invent characters that are completely made up. She responds to the world surrounding her with both humour and criticism, appropriating images from advertising, film, television and magazines for her art. She works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of costumes. How does one series end and another begin? “There is usually a moment where I say, ‘I’ve had enough of this, I’m sick of it.’ Or I feel like I’ve started to repeat myself within a series.”^4 Sherman works alone in her studio and does everything by herself, picking out the costumes, finding the props, designing the makeup, fixing the lighting and, of course, using herself as the model. In the beginning she didn’t have the money to hire people to help her, but now she prefers to work alone. Each photograph is a private performance for herself. She works intuitively, and none of her images are about her. But they are her: for Sherman they are characters and should not be considered self-portraits. It’s about painting the characters on her face to highlight how we all put on different faces throughout our lives, even different faces throughout the day. There are hints of narrative in her photographs so viewers can make up their own stories about the characters in the pictures.

Sherman has received just about every award available to an American artist. In 1995, she was the recipient of one of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowships, popularly known as the “Genius Awards,” and she has represented her country twice at the Venice Biennale.

4 Interview by Kenneth Baker, “Cindy Sherman: Interview with a Chameleon” (Sightlines,

November 1, 2012), n.p.

PRE-VISIT ACTIVITY: About the Artist

(intermediate/secondary students)

Objective: Students explore the life of Cindy Sherman, and her artistic practice, photography series and achievements.

Materials:

• Access to the Internet
• Access to library for art books on the artist
• Artist Information Sheet and Student Worksheet (p.7)
• Writing materials

Process:

1. Divide the class into small groups. Give each group one of the categories from the Information Sheet. (p.7)
2. Give each student a copy of the Student Worksheet (p.8) and ask them to consider what they need to find out to complete their section. Have them conduct research using the Internet, either at home or at school.
3. Ask each group to find and describe a piece of work by the artist and add it into the space provided on the Worksheet.
4. Have each group present their information while the rest of the students fill in their worksheets.

Conclusion: Discuss the following: What were some of the most interesting things that students learned or discovered? Which photograph are students curious about seeing in the exhibition? In what ways does Sherman’s work connect to or resonate with students’ lives? What else are students interested in finding out about the artist?

STUDENT WORKSHEET: Cindy Sherman

Personal Information

Art Process/Practice

Photography Series

Achievements

An Artwork:

Title and Description

PRE-POST VISIT ACTIVITY: That’s me!

(younger ages)

Objective Create a photo scrapbook to better understand the meaning of changing identity and appearance.

Discussion When Cindy Sherman was eight or nine years old, she created a photo album filled with pictures of herself. She titled this personal memoir The Cindy Book. “When I’d look through [boxes of family photos], I’d always ask my mother ‘Which one is me?’ I guess it became interesting to me to pick myself out of a group of people.” 1 There are 26 photographs of Sherman in the book, charting her changing appearance as she grows from an infant to a pre-teen. In some she is participating in various activities with family and friends, and in others she is alone. The memoir is evidence that even at a young age, Cindy Sherman was fascinated with her changing everyday appearance. And as she changed and grew, so did her identity and appearance.

She stopped adding to the album in her early teens, but rediscovered the book while in art school and decided to finish it. She did so by adding the words “that’s me,” and sometimes circled an image of herself in the pictures. Sherman also changed her handwriting to reflect her different ages, as if it too were changing and growing in appearance like Sherman. By using a comma at the end of each statement of “that’s me,” instead of a period, she seems to acknowledge that her identity and appearance are constantly changing.

In the repeated phrase “that’s me,” there is also a suggestion of wonder and searching, as if the phrase could also be a question: “This is me and yet this is also me?” In 2009 Sherman acknowledged the effort she was making when she was young to understand such puzzles: “The book came out of this search. I was ten years old—of course, at the time I didn’t think of it as art, I was just trying to find out who I was in my little world.” 2

While The Cindy Book reflects the concerns of a young child in understanding her identity and appearance, there is also a wider human implication that affects us all. Who am I?

1 Text by Paul Moorhouse, Cindy Sherman exhibition catalog (National Portrait Gallery, Lon-

don, 2019), p. 14 2 Interview by Rachel Wetzler, “I’m trying to erase myself”: an interview with Cindy Sherman (Apollo. The International Art Magazine), n.p.

A Cindy Book

(pg. 4, 5)

A Cindy Book (pg. 10, 11)

A Cindy Book (pg. 8, 9)

A Cindy Book (pg. 12)

PRE-VISIT ACTIVITY: Movie Press Kit for Untitled Film

Stills (all levels)

Objective: Students create a movie title and story summary based on a photograph from Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills series.

Discussion: Shortly after moving to New York in late 1977, Cindy Sherman began to create Untitled Film Stills, a photographic series that launched her career and established her reputation as a leading artist of the Pictures Generation. A collection of 70 individual black-and-white images, the series recalls publicity shots for films during the 1950s and 60s.

Actual film stills were photographs taken on film sets as advertisements for cinematic features. Many of the photographers were unknown, and the photographs were used as free fan handouts or sent along in press kits. When Sherman first produced the series, she sold the photographs for fifty dollars to reference the “throw away” quality.

Cindy Sherman began the series by photographing herself in her apartment and studio, using basic props. She directed her friends to photograph her in scenes set outdoors, but whether or not she was the one to release the camera’s shutter, she is considered the author of the photographs.

The fictional scenes were always staged for the camera, and Sherman so convincingly recreated film publicity shots that many viewers believe they can identify the scenes from actual movies, even though all the photographs are completely made up from the artist’s own imagination.

All of the photographic situations hint at stories but are deliberately vague, inviting viewers to create their own interpretations of what is happening within the photograph, based on their own experiences with movies they have seen

PROJECT EXTENSION: Untitled Film Stills

(secondary students)

Discussion Untitled Film Stills (pg. 15) explores what it means to be under the gaze of others. Sherman’s work is critical of the toxic environment the male gaze has created for women. By turning the camera on herself in a series of fantasy Hollywood roles and poses, Sherman meant to expose and embarrass ”Old Hollywood”: “My ‘stills’ were about fakeness of role-playing as well as contempt for the domineering ‘male’ audience who would mistakenly read the images as sexy.” 1 Sherman is also making us think about our own participation in the way media packages female stereotypes and understands fighting these stereotypes cannot simply be defeated because they are exposed in a photographic art series. Exposure is a start, but it takes much more conversation, education and careful looking to expose the myth of prevailing Western cultural stereotypes of women, that they are here for the pleasure of the male gaze.

Materials

• Magazines
• Internet
• Phone cameras (optional)

Process

1. Have students find current advertisements and movie posters featuring women.
2. How are women presented in these images? Whose gaze do students feel they are created for? Have things changed in Hollywood since Sherman created the Untitled Film Stills series in the late 1980s? If not, how would students change these images?
3. Working in groups, have students recreate their found images to change the Hollywood stereotype of women.

Conclusion Discuss how students ch ose to change the female image in their photographs.

1 Siegel, Jeanne, “Cindy Sherman” (1998). Interview, excerpted from Jansen, HW, and Jansen,

Anthony F., History of Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1997.

CINDY SHERMAN: Untitled Film Stills

• Untitled Film Still #56 Untitled Film Still #
• Untitled Film Still # - Untitled Film Still # - Untitled Film Still #

Cindy Sherman is not impersonating real people in her artwork but instead is creating characters based on people she sees on the street, in advertisements, magazines, television, film and social media. She creates these images and gives us clues to make decisions on what stereotypes we think these characters are, based solely on their appearance. However, when we look more closely at the images, we realize that our first assumptions may not be true. Similarly, our first impressions of people based solely on appearance change as we get to know them better.

Materials

• Camera
• Clothing, props brought from home
• Paper
• Pencils

Process

1. As a class, watch the trailer for Rear Window linked in discussion. Notice the different stereotypes given to the characters living in the apartments. What did you see that creates these stereotypes? (optional)
2. As a class, look at the three works provided of characters created by Cindy Sherman.*
3. Ask students: What is a character? Discuss. A character is a representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art (such as a novel, play or film). Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves “the illusion of being a human person.” How has Cindy Sherman evoked character in these artworks?
4. What is your first impression of these characters? What do you see that makes you say that? Who are they? What do you think their life might be like? What do you see that makes you say that? How would you identify them if they were characters in an apartment window of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window?
5. What is a character? Discuss. A character is a representation of a person in a narrative or dramatic work of art (such as a novel, play or film). Character, particularly when enacted by an actor in the theatre or cinema, involves “the illusion of being a human person.” How has Cindy Sherman evoked character in these artworks? What do you think their life might be like?
6. What is character revelation? Discuss. The components of character revelation that are part of a good portrait will contain at least one element that reveals the subject’s personality: an object, unique mannerisms or any of the other features or traits that form the individual nature of the person. What elements has Cindy Sherman added to the artwork to create character revelation?
7. Ask students what character they would like to create for their artwork. Remember, Cindy Sherman is not impersonating real people, but characters based on real people she has observed.

8. List 5 important factors for students to consider when composing character revelation for their artwork.
9. Have students bring items from home to help bring their characters to life. Have them think about gestures they can mimic to reinforce their character’s personality, camera an- gle and lighting.
10. Have students create a photograph of their characters with clues for the class to identify characters and their stories.
11. Have students share their character photographs with the class.

Conclusion:

1. Display photographs in the classroom.
2. Discuss first impressions of who these characters are, based on appearance.
3. Was it easy to create a photograph of a character?
4. Ask students what they enjoyed most about the process. What did they enjoy least?
5. How are the artworks similar and different?
6. How did props, costumes and mannerisms help you transform into your character?
7. What did students learn from the process?
8. Did everyone stereotype the characters the same way? Why or why not?
9. Do the images make you rethink images you see? For example, images in magazines, on television, on social media, at the movies or in advertising? If so, how?