Artists We Love: Cindy Sherman

We recently saw the Cindy Sherman retrospective at MoMa and we loved her. That is to say, each and everyone of her, for Cindy Sherman has been taking pictures of herself since she was an art student, and has managed to become hundreds of different women, and sometimes men, while channeling many important historical artistic influences in the process., from film stills to the art of the renaissance. This retrospective is a great window on how she developed as an artist. Sherman has been able to do one thing for over forty years and every time she finds a different angle to explore, although in our opinion some of the recent work has lost its loveliness and become more a form of parody. Still, her work remains current. Her series of portraits of regular American people, which resemble the kind of tacky pictures people take at places like Sears, is both a caricature and a spot on depiction of people we’ve all seen around or even known. We truly love the Untitled Film Stills at the beginning of her career as well as the Centerfold series. But even in her most parodic stages, like her recent portraits of society matrons, you can feel her sense of humor, her talent as a photographer and as an actress, her breadth of knowledge about art and her empathy for the many modes of women’s existence.

This unmissable exhibit is currently at the San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, where Sherman is also curating a fascinating film series. We are not surprised that she chose one of our favorite horror films of all time: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, possibly the scariest scary movie ever made. And we are thrilled that she, like us, loves the great Korean monster film/comedy The Host. A filmmaker in her own right, she directed the movie Office Killer, which is a deadpan, super black comedy that is well worth checking out.

More about Sherman in this series of videos. For a cool treat, scroll down and check out the videos with her at her workshop and shopping. They are the most fun.