Monday Muse: Cindy Sherman, Untitled Horrors

Summer is over which means it’s officially Halloween. I love this time of year from the cooling of the weather, turning of leaves, to the little bit of magic that seems to be in the air. The best thing about this time of year, though, is all of the scary movies that are available to watch. I am a hardcore horror fan and I take every chance I can get to be spooky during the fall.

I am always inspired by Cindy Sherman, she is one of my favorite living artists. Getting to see her work at the Broad Museum in L.A. was such a great experience and I can’t wait to be able to go see art in museums again. For this time of year, I always like to look through the book I got at that exhibit called Cindy Sherman Untitled Horrors. This is a collection of her photographs that deal with everything macabre, spooky, disgusting, and strange. Sherman becomes the sufferer of nightmares and the nightmare itself. What I love about Sherman’s work in the horror genre is that while she does depict herself in the traditional role of a frightened female victim, she also steps into the role of the horrific antagonist. In turn, we experience both roles as we view the photographs. There’s something stomach turning about these works but also the feeling that you can’t quite look away. My favorite photograph of these is the tableux of after-the-Halloween-party mayhem. The photograph is strewn with candy, squished cupcakes, and what appears to be vomit. Upon closer inspection, the viewer can see the twisted face of the victim, what happened to her is up to your imagination. I like to believe she is the mother of a group of teenagers that have left behind a massive mess after their Halloween revelry.

All of Sherman’s work makes the viewer uncomfortable but Untitled Horrors takes it to the next level and can really inspire a visceral response. There are hundreds of images in this category and one thing that inspires me the most about them is the way that Sherman decontextualizes the imagery so that the viewer is able to fill in the gaps of the story for themselves. We only get to see a small snapshot of the subjects’ life, a moment frozen in time. It’s also fun to examine the horror movie tropes that Sherman explores in her work, one of my favorites being the fear of clowns. Ahh the simpler times of killer clowns on the loose, wasn’t that 2018?

I highly recommend you get into the spooky spirit and take a deep dive into Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Horrors. I can’t guarantee you won’t regret it but take some time to think of a scary story that goes with the photo and have some Halloween fun!