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concept:era contemporary

Untitled Film Still #21

Gelatin silver photograph by Cindy Sherman, 1978. 19.1 × 24.1 cm. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Part of the Untitled Film Stills series (1977–1980). Shows Sherman as a young woman in a domestic interior, evoking 1950s film noir and melodrama conventions.

Scholarly Significance

Postmodern photography — Untitled Film Still #21 is among the most reproduced images from the Untitled Film Stills series; the series sold complete to MoMA in 1995.

Notes

  • ·The Untitled Film Stills (1977–1980) consists of 69 black-and-white photographs; Sherman plays all the female roles herself using wigs, costumes, and makeup.
  • ·#21 shows Sherman as a young woman in a kitchen interior, looking up from the counter with an ambiguous expression — a shot that could be from any number of 1950s domestic melodramas.
  • ·None of the works are actual film stills; they simulate a genre to expose its constructed nature.
  • ·The complete set of 69 prints was acquired by MoMA in 1995 for approximately $1 million — then a record for photography.
  • ·The series is foundational to postmodern and feminist photography discourse: Roland Barthes, Laura Mulvey, and Rosalind Krauss have all engaged with it.