Cindy Sherman is a female artist from the United States who born in 1954. She is recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. In her career which more than 30 years, she continuously exploring the truth and structural of female contemporary identity. Her artworks always the research topic of feminism, although she never claims herself as a supporter of it. She does all the work for her photographs which not only as photographer, model and makeup artist. She loves to decorate herself to create many intriguing tableaus and attractive characters.

Sherman already famous when she was less than 30 years old. Untitled Film Stills (1977~1980) is her famous work after she graduated from University at Buffalo. At that time she was just 23 years old. MoMA collected it in 1995. I get a chance to appreciate this series when I went to MoMA this November. I consider those 69 photographs as recall of one of the best ages of the United States (Compare 1950s~ 1960s between the United States and China, the United States absolutely the heavens at that time). Black and white photograph perfectly shows the shadow and light. The fashion, beautiful and brave young ladies standing under the sunshine of a big city. They just like the propaganda poster of that age. It‘s hard to let me don’t look back for that beautiful and golden age.

Cindy Sherman_Untitled Film Stills #13_1978

One of the photos I like very much is # 13 in this series. This photo balance and connect the dynamic and static very well. The bookshelf shows the static and the girl shows dynamic. The book used to show static move by the rising up arm. This shows the connection of two status. Also, the bookshelf is a dark color and the girls in white color. The character just pops up from the background. I can feel this is a very traditional technique in taking photographs, but it still let me feels very harmonious and comfortable.

However, the introduction of this series of photographs slaps my face. In this series of photographs, the artist wants to pose in various stereotypical female roles inspired by 1950s and 60’s different kinds of film. They represent clichés or feminine types. What Sherman want to show as is women can not be recognized as one character with the same cloth and the same face. Women have different thinking and opinion, they should not be limit by frame. Life is not a film, females should not be forced into a certain role. However, the stereotypical of female roles “that are deeply embedded in the cultural imagination”. Shame for myself.

That’s true if I think back those photographs, they are not very lifeful and interesting. Those girls just like the flat character in old films.

“I like that whole jumble of ambiguity.” Cindy Sherman said. Yeah, maybe the things lack of strong contrast of light and shadow, lack of perfect position, dramatic expression from the human faces, jumble and grey is the truth of life.