But it has got me thinking about the art work of Cindy Sherman . Particularly the Untitled Film Stills which depict her dressed as women from a variety of B movie.
I've always had a thing for Film Noir and I think its her abilities to capture the quality and style of noir films so well that first drew me into her work. But once there you find the often simple, but dramatic, pictures raises a lot of issues; the attitude towards and the depiction of women in film being probably first and foremost.
By using herself in each photograph Sherman seems to be suggesting the easy interchangeability and narrowness of women's roles in films, her referencing of Hitchcock with his obsession over the perfect blond seems particularly strong. Actually speaking of Hitchcock, there appears to be echoes of his his ideas on the viewer as voyeur, wandering into a scene that we suspect we shouldn't be watching but keep staring at non the less.
The way each work is untitled but numbered in a sequence give the suspicion that in each photograph is part of a pattern. That a narrative must be there somewhere, causing you to look deeper into every image, question every object, concoct your own stories.
Sherman stated she only stopped when she ran out of cliches to use, which just makes me wonder how many more she could produce in today's world, just looking at the posters for the movie captivity that recently made a scene in the news shows how little we've come.
Anyway that's enough of me rambling on, judge for yourself...
Cindy Sherman's home site here
An online catalogue of work here
or Here
Right I'm off for a cup of tea, anybody care to join me?
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