The Tangled Web That Is Sherman
I was a little apprehensive about trying to read photographs through a postmodern lens. I haven’t really looked at pictures that way except for in Jameson’s article. I found that these pictures were a lot easier to read than I expected.
Several of the pictures shocked me at first, especially the sexually suggestive photos of the dolls and prosthetic body parts. I had to step away from them for a little bit to look at them a little more objectively, but didn’t want to forget my initial reaction to them as well. It kind of reminded me of the girlfriend of the narrator in Written on the Body. Her reaction to something so shocking and almost disturbing. She found beauty not in just the art, but her reaction to the art. I experienced the exact same thing. I guess that is the true test of art. If emotion is not invoked, then your point just has not been expressed.
There were three photos that really caught my attention. the first one was in the first link, Untitled Film Still #35. This is a rather domestic picture of a woman in an apron standing in front of a door looking rather enraged about something. I found it interesting that her body is facing coats on hooks while she is looking in a different direction. I also noticed that the door had several black marks along the bottom and a few at top. It seemed almost like someone was kicking at it. It is almost like the scene where the housewife is fed up with life and is threatening to leave, but never does.
The next photo that really created a reaction for me was Untitled #255. This is the photo of the anatomically correct female doll posed in a sexual position. The positioning of the doll is what caused the initial reaction, but then I noticed something that gave the picture a whole new meaning to me. I noticed that it looked like the doll was not looking at the camera, but at a hairbrush on the left side of the bed. I’m still not sure what exactly Sherman meant to say here, but it made the picture seem a little less grotesque to me.
The last photo that made me step back and question the meaning behind it was Untitled Film Still #33. This is a picture of a woman sitting at the head of a bed and there is an envelope and what appears to be a letter at the foot of the bed. I felt a sort of separation in the photo. It felt like the subject was distancing herself from the words in front of her. Maybe this is a commentary on the separation between an author and their words.
The more I look at these pictures, the more I realize how important the little details are. It is almost like Sherman is daring you to look past the sometimes shocking subject and dig deeper into the picture. Everything may seem random, but everything has a purpose. I truly enjoyed the roller coaster ride these photos took me on and look forward to seeing how this applies more to the class and postmodernism.
i enjoyed reading your post and found it to be very insightful. I too was a little shocked with Cindy Sherman’s work, especially the one with the rather revealing doll. I was intrigued as to why there was this doll in such a sexually suggestive position. I decided to write a blog post on this, but I had completely ignored how the hairbrush was the main focus of the doll. It seems as though this picture is similar to the black and white one of the women in her underwear with the mirror in her hand. Maybe Sherman is trying to express a transformation that has occured due to time. Maybe she believes that a certain loss of sexual innocence has occured in the time between the two photographs. Good post!