Cindy Sherman Research Paper

Think back to the last time you were repulsed by an image but could not keep your eyes off it. Actually you laughed at it, hoping no one would notice. Then we are probably talking about Cindy Sherman’s work. Cindy Sherman has been recognized as one of the most important and influential artists in contemporary art. She is widely known for her distinct shooting style and her singular choice of subject: herself. Through various disguises, prosthetics, and makeup, Sherman brings to focus the nature of representation and femininity with reference to various literary and media as source inspiration. Throughout her career, she has presented a sustained and provocative exploration of the construction of contemporary identity and the nature of representation, drawn from the unlimited supply of images from movies, TV, magazines, the Internet, and art history.

Sherman is obsessed with artifice and fiction; cinema and performance; horror and the grotesque; myth, carnival, and fairy tale; genes and class identity.

What Sherman’s doing resonates what a clown is doing. But why does Cindy Sherman choose the subject of clowns? The clown is the logical extension of many fundamental themes in Sherman’s work. But she is now no longer interested in exploring the infinite potential of dressing up, disguise, and impersonation, the game of borrowed identities that has unfolded so far. On the contrary, the Clowns series adopts a single, universally familiar type whose attributes remain more or less constant.

So let’s take a look at the concept of “clown”. “Clowning is a kind of innocent magic, divorced from day-to-day reality and enacted within a world of uncomplicated enchantment.” Throughout art history, many artists have turned to the circus as a fitting metaphor for their own role in society. The role of the clown became associated somehow with the artist's own ambivalent