'There are so many levels of artifice. I liked that whole jumble of ambiguity.' CINDY SHERMAN

Cindy Sherman’s illustrious Film Stills series (1977-80) was produced over thirty-five years ago and yet they persist in captivating and inciting intrigue. Arresting in nature, the Film Stills represent Sherman’s first exploration of cinematic language − a foray into black and white photography that would grant her artworld recognition and a cult-like following to this day. Employing a format most commonly recognized in publicity film stills, Sherman’s series subverts the conventional expectations associated with this collectible format while confronting a larger history of objectification in cultural production.

The present lot, Untitled Film Still #36, 1979, investigates codes of representation and the construction of archetypes as perpetuated by the film industry. As with the rest of the series, the present lot finds Sherman in an ambiguous setting. Is this the photograph of Sherman as actress changing on set or are we peering further into the rabbit hole, into a movie-still featuring Sherman’s actress in character? Either way, Sherman sets a voyeuristic stage reminiscent of Hitchcock’s cinematic masterpiece Rear Window, in which the viewer’s participation is implicit− our gaze is active. The back-lit curtain that seemingly grants Sherman’s character some privacy also frames her silhouette: the curtain renders anonymity while simultaneously functioning as a screen upon which the viewer projects their own constructed narrative.

In this way, Sherman concurrently veils and exposes the myth of the photograph as evidence or as an 'index' of the real, underscoring the resonance of the constructed image as an extension of performance. To this we can add that Untitled Film Still #36, while not strictly a documentary endeavor, is in fact evidence of Sherman’s performance as a type of character. The narrative constructed by the artist is staged; however, the resulting photograph captures the moment of narrative cohesion–expressing a mood that ultimately delves into an aspect of psychological space. What we witness in the photograph is the event of Sherman conflating fictional and real events: 'I know I was not consciously aware of this thing the 'male gaze.' It was the way I was shooting, the mimicry of the style of black and white grade-Z motion pictures that produced the self-conciousness of these characters, not my knowledge of feminist theory. I suppose unconsiously, or semiconsiously at best, I was wrestling with some sort of turmoil of my own about understanding women. The characters weren’t dummies [….] they were struggling with something but I didn’t know what.' (Cindy Sherman quoted in 'Cindy Sherman: The Making of Untitled,'Cindy Sherman: The Complete Untitled Film Stills, New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2003, p. 9).