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Cindy Sherman at Metro Pictures
Art in America, Jan, 2005 by Jean Dykstra
It's a little surprising that Cindy Sherman hasn't explored clowns before. She has engaged for so long with things clownlike--exaggeration and masquerade; the notion of a shifting, unstable identity; and the boorish, pathetic and grotesque aspects of our personalities. To represent clowns directly, as she has in her latest series, seems almost redundant. In a 2000-01 series, a withering study of middle-aged women holding on stubbornly to a youthful self-image, Sherman drew attention to the cracks in the veneer: the once-fashionable clothes, the outmoded hairstyles. Clowns are explicitly about such imperfections, revealing the pathos behind the flamboyantly slipshod costume, or the menace underlying the glee.
Sherman is an unparalleled performer and a sharp observer of human folly and weakness. She has said that she didn't like clowns as a child (who does, really?) and only began visiting the circus in her 30s. Clearly, she found some fertile ground. In a particularly effective work, a pensive male clown tenderly holds a pink balloon-dog on one side of a diptych, while, on the other, his female counterpart, wearing a Carmen Miranda hat of balloon-fruit, has folded her arms and closed her eyes, looking resigned and world-weary. In a creepier photograph, a yellow-suited slickster manages to look altogether threatening while playing a small accordion. The most girlish-looking clown in the series--with pink ponytails and a stuffed animal--is also the most sexual, with fabric breasts and a triangular patch of felt pubic hair that recall earlier Sherman series in which she incorporated prosthetic body parts.
The strongest pieces are those that focus in on the details of Sherman's carefully calibrated performances and her nuanced use of color and costume. Slightly weaker are the ones that digitally montage more than a single figure, providing too much information and narrative direction. In one of the photographs with several figures, three images of the same blue-haired clown, with different expressions and in different sizes, are seen against a zigzagging, psychedelically colored background. The digital backgrounds are new to Sherman's work, and the more trippy and hallucinogenic they are, the more they draw attention away from the characterizations. In the most compelling photographs, the clown is an isolated Everyman, and we are given the freedom to peruse his psychological depth. While the subjects of her Film Stills or History Portraits were distant as cultural icons, the clowns can be read as embodiments of us all.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Brant Publications, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group
