Book Description

Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, a series of 69 black-and-white photographs created between 1977 and 1980, is widely seen as one of the most original and influential achievements in recent art. Witty, provocative and searching, this lively catalogue of female roles inspired by the movies crystallizes widespread concerns in our culture, examining the ways we shape our personal identities and the role of the mass media in our lives. ~Sherman began making these pictures in 1977 when she was 23 years old. The first six were an experiment: fan-magazine glimpses into the life (or roles) of an imaginary blond actress, played by Sherman herself. The photographs look like movie stills--or perhaps publicity pix--purporting to catch the blond bombshell in unguarded moments at home. The protagonist is shown preening in the kitchen and lounging in the bedroom. Onto something big, Sherman tried other characters in other roles: the chic starlet at her seaside hideaway, the luscious librarian, the domesticated sex kitten, the hot-blooded woman of the people, the ice-cold sophisticate and a can-can line of other stereotypes. She eventually completed the series in 1980. She stopped, she has explained, when she ran out of clichés.~Other artists had drawn upon popular culture but Sherman's strategy was new. For her the pop-culture image was not a subject (as it had been for Walker Evans) or raw material (as it had been for Andy Warhol) but a whole artistic vocabulary, ready-made. Her film stills look and function just like the real ones--those 8 x 10 glossies designed to lure us into a drama we find all the more compelling because we know it isn't real. In the Untitled Film Stills there are no Cleopatras, no ladies on trains, no women of a certain age. There are, of course, no men. The 69 solitary heroines map a particular constellation of fictional femininity that took hold in postwar America--the period of Sherman's youth and the starting point for our contemporary mythology. In finding a form for her own sensibility, Sherman touched a sensitive nerve in the culture at large. Although most of the characters are invented, we sense right away that we already know them. That twinge of instant recognition is what makes the series tick and it arises from Cindy Sherman's uncanny poise. There is no wink at the viewer, no open irony, no camp.~In 1995, The Museum of Modern Art purchased the series from the artist, preserving the work in its entirety. This book marks the first time that the complete series will be published as a unified work, with Sherman herself arranging the pictures in sequence. She's good enough to be a real actress.--Andy Warhol~The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.--Arthur Danto Essays by Peter Galassi and Cindy Sherman. Hardcover, 9.5 x 11.25 in./164 pgs / 0 color 0 BW69 duotone 0 ~ Item D20150 ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Cindy Sherman: Film Stills
Cindy Sherman's Untitled Film Stills, a series of 69 black-and-white photographs created between 1977 and 1980, is widely seen as one of the most original and influential achievements in recent art. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

Good Introduction to this Remarkable Artist
This short book can serve as a wonderful non-technical introduction to the work of Cindy Sherman. The book is filled with reproductions of her work from various periods in her stylistic evolution. Wisely, the author does not seek to didactically interpret Sherman's work for the reader-- instead she presents the material while raising a number of issues for the reader to contemplate.

For those unfamiliar with Sherman's work, one of the most striking aspects is her use of her own self as model in most of her works (especially those from earlier in her career). Her later works are a little more dangerous-- using dolls and other non-human subjects in often graphically subversive sexual contortions.

Cindy Sherman is a true contemporary genius in that her works speak to a very large audience on various levels of meaning. My only reservation about the book is that it seems a little too brief in its discussion of Sherman's biography (although the inclusion of her early work is certainly revealing). One wonders about the "real" Cindy Sherman-- and how she differs from the "Cindy Sherman" that appears in the Untitled Film Stills that solidified her position as a great American artist.

A great photographic work.
I was just surfing around and stumbled in here. I've read this title, Anyone unfamiliar with the model in question should get this and anyone familiar should read this as it is one of the greatest books on her. The only reason this does not get 5 stars is pieces of it I thought were wordy and a bit belaboring. Overall a great read however. ... Read more

Book Description

This volume contains two early photographic series--"Bus Riders" and "Murder Mystery People"--by Cindy Sherman, shot in 1976, soon after she graduated from art school. It is accompanied by a CD of found sound-based music by The Glove Compartment, aka Gian Carlo Feleppa. ... Read more

Book Description

This comprehensive book traces the career of Cindy Sherman, examining her achievements as one of the leading American artists of our time. Provocative and engaging, the vivid physicality of Sherman's photographs is the key to their dramatic power. By exploring the myriad constructions of female identity and the body in our culture, Sherman imitates and confronts assorted representational stereotypes, becoming for many an icon of the contemporary concerns of feminism and postmodernism. Essayists Amanda Cruz, Elizabeth A. T. Smith, and Amelia Jones offer keen insight and observations from several distinct vantage points, demonstrating that Sherman's work is a lens through which to view contemporary art and its ongoing concern with the profound issues of the structures of the self. More than 200 images show the breadth of Sherman's body of work, from the Untitled Film Stills of the 1970s to series such as Centerfolds, Fashion, Disasters, Fairy Tales, and History Portraits, as well as photographs influenced by surrealist artists. Also included are intriguing excerpts from Sherman's notebooks, selections from her contact sheets, and numerous Polaroid studies, all of which shed light on the artist's process. Cindy Sherman: Retrospective was first published to accompany an exhibition organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. 279 photographs, 145 in color. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Good Book-Not so good Art
Just recieved this item, the book gets 4 stars for layout and image quality, a good art book. The book gets 2 stars for the quality of the work it contains.

If you like Sherman than this is a good book for you,though I'd suggest re-evaluating you asthetic awarness :) If your looking for great art look elsewhere. Sherman is an overhyped artist. Popular because her work fits into the politically correct agendas and philosophies of the contemporary artworld, not because the work is good. Just read one of the reviews here. The book contains some good peices, some that are atleast interesting but far to many fall into the just plain bad category as represented in this book.

While recently attending a group critique an undergradute ceramics major stated she was a "process orientated" artist(said with artsy fartsy flair to make up for the fact she really didn't have anything to show). Sherman reminds me of her, a bad contemporary cliche masking itself behind feminist artworld dogma. If thats what you want, look at Jenny Saville, atleast she is a good painter, even if her content is often trite.

At last a superb compilation of a great artist's works.
I can't believe it's taken this long for a compilation of Cindy Sherman's body of work to appear. But maybe that's the real measure of a major artist in this place at this time. Sherman is one of the strongest,most meticulous and most original artists to appear since the early 1930s. I'm not going to analyze the photographs, they've been analyzed to death and are far beyond analysis in any case. Suffice to say the quality and layout are excellent. A thrilling book! I do have one reservation which has nothing to do with CS. The accompanying essays are highly ideological (which CS ain't) and serve Sherman far less than their own agendas plus at least one of them is almost unreadable mumbo jumbo.

loved it
A great overview of Cindy Sherman's art with very few gaps. A quick response to an above statement: The disgust you feel is a great part of how one should look at her work. One of the most fascinating aspects in all her photos is the ability she has to construct blantant lies that we react to almost as passionately as what we feel to be genuine. As for her dolls, it's more along the lines of her very merrily reconstructing versions of the human body that are obviously false yet we still search for their anatomical processes. The aspects of them that one finds disgusting are more like the silly goo of a cheap horror movie or the ridiculous body part shots of the sleaziest silicone laden porno. Despite our knowing it's inherent phoniness, we still are frightened, disgusted, and aroused. As I said before, that's a key to her work. Frankly, if you are that disturbed by plastic excrement and genitalia, but not phased at all by the phycological twisting and tension so prevelant in her earlier work, then maybe modern art overall just isn't your cup of tea.

Beware of the contents of this book!
While Cindy Sherman may be considered a very talented photographer, the later part of her career as portrayed in this book is without a doubt deranged. The photographs contained in this book are truly mortifying. It is frightening that ides like hers could come from the human mind. Her explicit graphics on violence and sex are repulsing to even the most open-minded of audiences. I reccommend using discretion when purchasing this book.

very informative, educational about women's rights
Cindy Sherman's Retrospective explains quite well the philosophy and fight about women and their struggle for equal respect in society. Her work, after reading the analyzation seemed very straight forward and is very easy to understand from a woman's perspective. ... Read more

Book Description

Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, and Cindy Sherman were born in different countries, in different generations--Cahun in France in 1894, Deren in Russia in 1917, and Sherman in the United States in 1954. Yet they share a deeply theatrical obsession that shatters any notion of a unified self. All three try out identities from different social classes and geographic environments, extend their temporal range into the past and future, and transform themselves into heroes and villains, mythological creatures, and sex goddesses. The premise of Inverted Odysseys is that this expanded concept of the self--this playful urge to "try on" other roles-is more than a feminist or psychological issue. It is central to our global culture, to our definition of human identity in a world where the individual exists in a multicultural and multitemporal environment. This book is an "odyssey" through historical, theoretical, critical, and literary perspectives on the three artists viewed in the context of these issues. Contributors include Lynn Gumpert, Lucy Lippard, Jonas Mekas, Ted Mooney, Shelley Rice, and Abigail Solomon-Godeau.

Central to the book is Claude Cahun's "Heroines" manuscript, a series of fifteen stream-of-consciousness monologues written in the voices of major women of literature and history, such as the Virgin Mary, Sappho, Cinderella, Penelope, Delilah, and Helen of Troy. Translated by Norman MacAfee, these perverse and hilarious vignettes make their English-language debut here. This is also the first time that Cahun's text has appeared in its entirety.

The book accompanies an exhibit cocurated by Lynn Gumpert and Shelley Rice at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University.

Published in cooperation with the Grey Art Gallery, New York University.

EXHIBITION SCHEDULE:

Grey Art Gallery
New York, New York
November 16, 1999 - January 29, 2000

Museum of Contemporary Art
North Miami, Florida
March - May 2000 ... Read more

Book Description

Cindy Sherman’s photographs are almost immediately recognizable. Using herself as the model, she assumes numerous disguises to portray "characters" both fictional and famous, or to reinvent situations both commonplace and extraordinary. The consistency of her form and her adoption of familiar images and icons has earned her work a reputation for accessibility. But Sherman’s popularity in no way detracts from her status as one of her generation’s most accomplished photographers. From her early "Untitled Film Stills" to her more recent "Sex Pictures" Cindy Sherman continues to challenge, surprise, provoke and delight us with her unique interpretations of the media, culture, and gender.This retrospective volume offers a generous sampling of two decades of Sherman’s work. In more than 200 color and black and white images it chronicles her development as an artist and as a social critic. Included here are images from her many groundbreaking projects—"History Portraits," "Centerfolds," "Disasters," "Fairy Tales," and "Civil War"—in which Sherman plays both director and actress in highly staged tableaux that run the gamut from comical and ridiculous to sinister and grotesque. Sherman’s irony and intelligence are evident everywhere throughout this beautifully reproduced volume; so are her versatility and lack of pretension. It is the combination of these qualities—frustrating to scholars and critics —that endear her to the vast audiences who see themselves in her self-portraits. ... Read more

Book Description

One of Sherman’s most popular series - the Centerfolds were created in 1981 as a special project for Artforum at the invitation of Ingrid Sischy who was then the Editor. Composed by Sherman to utilize the "centerfold" format of the magazine, the 12 images feature self-portraits, which fill the frame. In the end Artforum chose not to run them, but they have since become both an integral point in the oeuvre of Sherman and a part of our contemporary visual iconography.The 12 images are featured in this handsome hardcover catalogue. Lisa Phillips, Director of The New Museum of Contemporary Art contributes the text. Issued in a relatively small print run this book should only increase in value over time.

Texts by Sylvia Wolf and Deirdre English. Clothbound, 12 x 6 in. / 44 pages / 12 color ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Amazing!
This is the most comprhensive book out on Cindy Sherman. Rosalind E. Krauss is a very insightful and educated author. Definately a must have for any Cindy Sherman fanatic! ... Read more