Untitled [Ants]

From her ground-changing Untitled Film Stills to her disturbing, Hans Bellmer-inspired Sex Pictures, Cindy Sherman’s practice is predicated on an interrogation of appearances and a fluid notion of identity. Postmodern theorists have lauded Sherman’s work for problematizing identity as a social construct, as well as for deflating the notion of originality as it relates to art. Sherman’s works extract visual cues within our image-based culture, compiling them so as to critique them. She also eradicates her footsteps so that no one image is heralded as the supreme “original.”
Sherman works alone in her home studio in New York, at once before and behind the camera. Her creative exploration is enabled by an apt, if curious, collection of props: wigs, vintage dresses, hats, suitcases, and even fake ants. In this untitled piece, two separate color transparencies—the first a headshot of the artist in one of her many wigged personas, the second a swathe of ants—merge when the light box is illuminated, creating a single, unnerving image.