I wanted pretty pictures of older women - women who are trying too hard but succeeding - pulling off an extreme look. What I didn't know would creep into the portraits was a vulnerability behind the strong facade that most of them wear.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the contrast between outward appearances and inner vulnerability in women.
Cindy Sherman expresses her desire to capture the complexity of older women in her portraits, highlighting how these women may project strength and confidence while simultaneously concealing deeper feelings of vulnerability. This duality reveals the struggles women face in conforming to societal beauty standards while also dealing with personal insecurities and emotions, ultimately enriching the narrative and depth of her art.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about the representation of women in art and media.
I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colorful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you're looking at is something totally opposite. It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It's more challenging to look at the other side.
Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren't meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.
People think because it's photography it's not worth as much, and because it's a woman artist, you're still not getting as much - there's still definitely that happening. I'm still really competitive when it comes to, I guess, the male painters and male artists. I still think that's really unfair.
All of a sudden there's a song - there in your hotel room playing your guitar - and you write it, and two or three years later it will come true. It keeps you on your toes.
Greek architecture taught me that the column is where the light is not, and the space between is where the light is. It is a matter of no-light, light, no-light, light. A column and a column brings light between them. To make a column which grows out of the wall and which makes its own rhythm of no-light, light, no-light, light: that is the marvel of the artist.
The details are details. They make the product. The connections, the connections, the connections. It will in the end be these details that give the product its life.
With poets, the choice of words is invariably more telling than the story line; that's why the best of them dread the thought of their biographies being written.
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.
I gathered poets around me and we all wrote beautiful erotica. As we were condemned to focus only on sensuality, we had violent explosions of poetry. Writing erotica became a road to sainthood rather than to debauchery.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.