Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman, who ranks No.27 in the 2010 Power 100 List, is one of my favorite contemporary artists. I know Cindy from Art: 21.Most of her works are photography of herself wearing different makeup and costumes. My favorite two series of her works are clowns and social portrays. In the clown series, she wears different kinds of clown makeup. Though the clowns suppose to entertain me, when I look at them, they make me feel there is something behind them and I cannot trust them at all. What’s more, I guess it is not easy for a person to have different clowns makeup and let the audiences believe they are not the same person under the clown makeup. In the series of social portray, Cindy dresses up as people living in different social levels. One of my favorites is a woman wearing a red sweater under a black jacket, sitting in front of a building. The building appears like a fancy hotel to me. Apparently the background building is added after taking the woman’s photo during the post-production period. I can tell the woman is rich from her hairstyle and scurf. Her winkles and lower abdomen show her age and the gesture she poses, makes me feel she is the center of her family. The other thing I found interesting about Cindy is：she leaves her works untitled. To me, it is a good thing. Without descriptive language on her images, I can rely myself to develop narratives as an essential component of appreciating the work. Her playful mixture of camp and horror, heightened by gritty realism—provides a new lens through which to examine societal assumptions surrounding gender and the valuation of concept over style.