Because the majority of Sherman’s pictures feature the artist as model, they showcase a single character. In the 1970s Sherman experimented with cutouts of multiple figures, in her whimsical 1975 stop-motion animated short film Doll Clothes and her rarely seen 1976 collages, which were achieved through a labor-intensive process of cutting and pasting multiple photographs. When Sherman began working digitally in the early 2000s, she was able to more easily incorporate multiple figures in one frame, allowing for a variety of new narrative possibilities. Where the early works chart the movements and gestures of a single character through space, the multiple figures in recent works interact with one another to create tableaus.
Because the majority of Sherman’s pictures feature the artist as model, they showcase a single character. In the 1970s Sherman experimented with cutouts of multiple figures, in her whimsical 1975 stop-motion animated short film Doll Clothes and her rarely seen 1976 collages, which were achieved through a labor-intensive process of cutting and pasting multiple photographs. When Sherman began working digitally in the early 2000s, she was able to more easily incorporate multiple figures in one frame, allowing for a variety of new narrative possibilities. Where the early works chart the movements and gestures of a single character through space, the multiple figures in recent works interact with one another to create tableaus.
16mm film transferred to DVD. 2:22 min. Courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York. © 2012 Cindy Sherman
Chromogenic color print, 59 13/16" x 7' 5 5/8" (151.9 x 227.6 cm). Collection Martin Z. Margulies. © 2012 Cindy Sherman
Chromogenic color print, 7' 2 3/8" x 71 1/2" (219.4 x 181.6 cm). The Broad Art Foundation, Santa Monica. © 2012 Cindy Sherman
Chromogenic color print, 68 5/8 x 72" (174.2 x 182.9 cm). John and Amy Phelan. © 2012 Cindy Sherman
Cut-out gelatin silver prints mounted on board, 16 1/4 x 39 1/4" (41.3 x 99.7 cm). Glenstone. © 2012 Cindy Sherman
Cut-out gelatin silver prints mounted on board, 13 5/8 x 48 3/16 x x 1 7/16" (34.6 x 122.4 x 3.7 cm). Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Purchased with funds contributed by the International Director's Council and Executive Committee Members: Eli Broad, Elaine Terner Cooper, Ronnie Heyman, J. Tomilson Hill, Dakis Joannou, Barbara Lane, Robert Mnuchin, Peter Norton, Thomas Walther, and Ginny Williams, 1997. © 2012 Cindy Sherman
