feministlibrary reblogged
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1977.
Cindy Sherman explores the symbolic - she instilled that all things are mediated/signified/linguistic. Instead of using ‘abjection of the body’ (artists like Vito Acconci or Chris Burden), Sherman used visual cues and symbols to create a ‘performance of self,’ because abjection somewhat escapes signification (abjection is about the absence of something). In doing so, the artist took familiar images (popular film stills) and duplicated them. Every ‘film still’ features the actual artist herself dressed as a different popular (or familiar) film character. These works also reference the fluidity of gender identity (a woman’s ability to use different visual cues such as clothing, makeup and props to become a different type of person) and gender performance.
