Fall 2019 - Fall 2022

MoMA

Cindy Sherman. Untitled Film Still #5. 1977. Gelatin silver print, 6 3/4 × 9 7/16" (17.2 × 24 cm). Horace W. Goldsmith Fund through Robert B. Menschel. © 2021 Cindy Sherman. Photo: John Wronn
  • MoMA, Floor 2, 201

For many artists, the media culture of the late 1970s and 1980s—the ever-increasing overload of movies, magazines, and television—prompted questions about how images shape our perceptions of ourselves and our experiences of the world. Some, such as Dara Birnbaum, Louise Lawler, and Cindy Sherman, began to examine how pictures and film stills circulate within the art market and the entertainment industry, often using the same tools of production and distribution. Seizing control of the camera or broadcasting on cable and public-access television was, according to Birnbaum, “a way of talking back to the media.” In quoting and reframing familiar images, and staging their own versions, these artists exposed the ways in which gender and power relations are constructed.

Organized by Roxana Marcoci, The David Dechman Senior Curator, Department of Photography, with Gee Wesley and Giampaolo Bianconi, Curatorial Assistants, Department of Media and Performance, and Phil Taylor, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Photography.

50 works online

Artists

Installation images

How we identified these works

In 2018–19, MoMA collaborated with Google Arts & Culture Lab on a project using machine learning to identify artworks in installation photos. That project has concluded, and works are now being identified by MoMA staff.

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MoMA licenses archival audio and select out of copyright film clips from our film collection. At this time, MoMA produced video cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. All requests to license archival audio or out of copyright film clips should be addressed to Scala Archives at [email protected]. Motion picture film stills cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For access to motion picture film stills for research purposes, please contact the Film Study Center at [email protected]. For more information about film loans and our Circulating Film and Video Library, please visit https://www.moma.org/research/circulating-film.

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