*Untitled*, 1981. © Cindy Sherman / Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Written by Federica Barrios Carbonell
Edited by Jana Massoud
Photo Edited by Lucia Luzzani

Cindy Sherman is one of the most iconic photographers in contemporary art. Her style is revolutionary. “I am trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me.” Sherman’s words perfectly describe her long career in performative photography. She is most known for her self-portraits posing as different personalities. Within the essence of her most compelling images lies an ambivalence of identity brought forth by stereotypes in the media. Through her representations of selfhood, Sherman publicizes the formations of these stereotypes and society’s interactions with them; what causes them to be so prevalent?

Beautiful images are exhibited from her famous Rear Screen Projections series. Sherman explores social perceptions of the woman and of what a woman should be, and how they affect her life. The housewife making her way out of the home is a symbolic act that may be suggestive of the ambiguous identity that comes from home life and personal goals. Her style mimics Hollywood entertainment, and her stills depict characters representative of common film personality types rather than a specific actor. By creating familiar scenes, like a housewife leaving home or a woman in the midst of a city looking pensive and frustrated, Sherman perfectly assimilates the vagueness of being an idealized woman in the 70s.

*Untitled*, 1980. © Cindy Sherman / Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Sherman’s images of faux cinematic likeness foreshadows our current obsession with media. In the early 80s her portraits reflected the sought after innocent sexuality of women in commissioned photographs by the Artforum magazine. A young woman lays sensually, yet is almost scared looking into the distance. Another feminine personality daydreams, laying on her floor in a color coordinated outfit resembling that of a schoolgirl. The male gaze is a big motivation in motion pictures that depict women in normalized standards of desire. Even when a woman is in daunting or fearsome situations, her hair seems to lie perfectly “disheveled”, not one strand out of place, and her rumpled clothes suggestive of the body underneath.

The male gaze has dictated the ways women are perceived in society. Cindy Sherman’s work exposes the embedded sexism of beauty and gender roles through portrayals of the idealized and stereotypically attractive characters in artistically curated scenarios. Her own exploration of the complexities of identity is both personal and relatable owing to each personality’s anonymity, the implications of her work create explicit critics of overruling societal tropes and expectations.

Sherman’s work admirably narrates the role of the woman in an era of mass consumerism. By gaining inspiration from traditional self-portraiture and theater in art, Sherman’s photographs remind the audience of conventional film through tools like costuming, make-up, staging, and all-together recreation of day-to-day fantasies. She touches on feminist themes and experiences of the modern woman with the help of media assimilation, creating images that unfold the dichotomies between self-identity and social expectations.

The Hauser and Wirth gallery will be exhibiting this amazing show from May 4th through the 29th of July, 2022 in an in-person show in their space on 69th street, New York.