Sherman, modefotografiet och det groteska

"Sherman’s next important phase, the Untitleds of 1983, first manifests the darkness that will, from then on, increasingly overwhelm her work. This turn was, in the first place, a reaction against the fashion industry that first invited her to design photographs for them and then tried to modify and tone down the results.

‘From the beginning there was something that didn’t work with me, like there was friction. I picked out some clothes I wanted to use. I was sent completely different clothes that I found boring to use. I really started to make fun, not of the clothes, but much more of the fashion. I was starting to put scar tissue on my face to become really ugly.’

These photographs use bright, harsh light and high-contrast colour. The characters are theatrical and ham up their roles. A new Sherman body is beginning to emerge. She grotesquely parodies the kind of feminine image that is geared to erotic consumption, and she inverts conventional codes of female allure and elegance.

Whereas the language of fashion photography gives great emphasis to lightness, so that its models seem to defy gravity, Sherman’s figures are heavy inbody and groundedness. Their unselfconsciousness verges on the exhibitionist, and they strike professional poses to display costumes that exaggerate their awkward physiques, which are then exaggerated again by camera angle and lighting. There is absolutely nothing to do with nature or the natural in this response to the cosmetic svelteness of fashion. Rather, they suggest that the binary opposition to the perfect body of the fashion model is the grotesque, and that the smooth glossy body, polished by photography, is a defence against an anxiety- provoking, uneasy and uncanny body."

Citat ur Laura Mulveys text A Phantasmagoria of the Female body: The Work of Cindy Sherman, från 1991(sid 143 ff). Jag blev så exalterad av att läsa detta. Vill dela med mig. Hela texten kan man för övrigt ladda ner här.