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Cindy Sherman

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Cindy Sherman
Cindy Sherman ranks as probably one of the best camera artists who use themselves as a medium of expression. Although he work consists of photographs of herself, her works should not be considered to be merely self-portraits: they are much more than that. She has transformed and staged herself as an unnamed actresses in undefined B-grade movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters from fairy tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesque images. Her works have been highly touted by a wide range of viewers, from feminist political groups to politically free mainstream artists, and her photography is an important expression of the investigation and culture of racial identity as well as sexual identity from 1970 on.
It has been said that, "The bulk of her work has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture..(her) pictures insist on the aporia [not sure about the spelling of this word] of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections" (Sobieszek 229).
Although she is originally from New Jersey, Cindy was the youngest of five and spent her childhood in Long Island. Her favorite pastime was dressing in costumes and spending hours in front of a mirror in various poses. She was, indeed, self-involved. (Schjeldahl 7). Cindy Sherman attended the state University College at Buffalo, New York, where she first started to create art in the using painting as a medium. During her college years, she painted self-portraits and realistic copies of images that she saw in photographs and magazines. Over time, she became less and less interested in painting and became increasingly focuses in conceptual, minimal, performance, body art, and film alternatives (Sherman 5)
Sherman 's first introductory



Cited: Danto, Arthur C. Cindy Sherman: Untitled Film Stills. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.. Heller, Nancy G. Women Artists and Illustrated History. New York: Abbeville Press, 1987. Kimmelman, Michael. Portraits. New York: Random House, 1998. Schjeldahl, Peter. Cindy Sherman. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984. Sherman, Cindy. The complete Untitled Film Stills. New York: The museum Of Modern Art, 2003.  Sills, Leslie. In Real Life: Six Women Photographers. New York: Holiday House, 2000. Sobieszek, Robert A. Photography and The Human Soul 1850-2000. Los Angles: MIT Press and Los Angles County Museum of Art, 1999 Thames and Hudson. Cindy Sherman Retrospective. Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art, 1998.

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