This is the official Tumblr of The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We post all sorts of museum-related goodness, plus submissions of artwork from you, our talented and magnificent followers, on Fridays.
In the mood for a meatier read? Check out Open Space, SFMOMA's official blog.
Happy birthday to photographer Cindy Sherman, who turns 59 today!
Sherman began as a painter in college, but soon turned to photography when, as she puts it, “I realized I could just use a camera and put my time into an idea instead.”
Image: ArtScope snapshot of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled (Marilyn), 1982
For a veritable treasure trove of multimedia related to Sherman’s work, click here!
This past weekend I went to SFMOMA to see the Cindy Sherman exhibit. The big deal for me is that they have the complete Untitled Film Stills project. I’ve only ever seen, in person, Untitled Film Still #3, 1977 at LACMA. That alone was amazing as it’s one of my favorites. But to see them all, together! The image above shows how they were placed on one wall and there are four walls. I cried tears of joy, literally. Like, they weren’t falling or rolling down my face, but they welled up to my lashes and little half-formed laughs made it past my stupid smile throughout my viewing.
After we left, I admitted to my friend that I had cried in that room and we talked about the works we saw. My heart was still so full—I was so overwhelmed cos this isn’t at all like me—and that’s when she dropped the straw that broke the camel’s back, she told me that she could see the influence that Cindy Sherman had on me in my work. She said that some of Cindy Sherman’s pieces made her think of my photos! Then all the images I had just seen flooded my mind and I had to sit down and catch my breath. I found a bench and just sat there, crying, and smiling. It was amazing.
I want to go back sometime before it’s taken down, sometime when the place is dead.
Wow, thank you for sharing this quite moving story :)
Hey photography lovers! It’s hard to believe, but we’re approaching the FINAL WEEKS of Cindy Sherman at SFMOMA. If you haven’t seen the show yet, be sure to plan a visit before October 8!
It’s hard to believe, but our Cindy Sherman retrospective has been on view for over two months now. If you live in the Bay Area and haven’t seen it yet, you better plan a visit soon – it closes in just over four weeks!
Need some more convincing? Here’s a roundup of what members of the press have been saying about the exhibition:
Sherman has an international reputation for her photos, which she takes using herself as model, makeup artist, and stylist. Erin O’Toole, assistant curator of photography at SFMOMA, who oversaw the show here, said Sherman explores what identity means through photography. ”Pictures, like identity, are a social construct,” O’Toole said.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has just opened the career retrospective of Sherman’s photographs organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Prepare for the possibility that after leaving it you will begin seeing ordinary people - women, particularly - as characters in the polymorphic Sherman mold.
Cindy Sherman is nearly always described as a groundbreaking postmodern photographer and pioneer. The mostly excellent, just-the-hits traveling retrospective currently visiting the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is carefully curated to justify that praise. All the high points of Sherman’s prolific career are here, and her virtuosic scrambling of photographic conventions and assumptions are shown in high relief. As an act of institutional pedagogy, it’s certainly effective if not exactly revelatory.
Cindy Sherman has created some very revealing photos of women, society, and about herself. Every photo features her. ”She is one of the most important living artist I would say,” said Neal Benezra, the executive director of SFMOMA. Art buyers agree. Last year one of her photos sold for nearly $4 million - the most expensive ever at the time.
Every once in a while an artist comes to town (Jean Paul Gaultier, Matisse and Picasso, Balenciaga, Warhol) and the entire city takes notice. This summer, that artist is Cindy Sherman at SFMOMA.
To add some social media coverage to the mix, check out this Storify recap of the exhibition’s opening preview (when the #CindySherman tag began to officially trend on Twitter!). Are you, too, interested in coming to live-tweet at SFMOMA opening previews and events? Then fill out our handy social media contact form!
Last but not least, we’re always thrilled to hear your opinions on Sherman’s photography or on our presentation of her retrospective. Submit your thoughts here.
Cindy Sherman’s groundbreaking series Untitled Film Stills showed us how we look at ourselves in film. These were performances within multiple fames of significance,” says Franco. “But Sherman was an artist looking at the film industry from the outside. I have started on the inside. I earn my living in the commercial film business. This new series of film stills puts one more frame around the dialogue Sherman introduced.
James Franco as Cindy Sherman in New Film Stills, to be exhibited at Costume National:
All 69 of Cindy Sherman’s original film stills are currently on view at SFMOMA! Come see them in person before the show closes.
Chow wrote about Blue Bottle’s new Cindy Sherman-inspired ice cream float!
Excerpt:
For the museum’s current retrospective of work by American photographer Cindy Sherman, Freeman and Rosenberg developed a giddy pink ice cream float, inspired by one of Sherman’s garish, leering self-portraits in clown drag. The photo—Untitled #415, from 2004—shows Sherman in a flowery coat and a silver-hologram bowler, holding a bottle of pink pop.
Recent comments