Cindy Sherman - 'Disasters and Fairy Tales'

I decided to extend my variety of research by looking into photographers, both conceptual and fashion based that have explored the theme of fairy tales.
My initial search led me to Cindy Sherman and her collection of photographs called 'Disasters and Fairy Tales' from 1985-1989. Critics like Joanna Lowry have commented that this collection signified a change in Sherman's work as she began to explore other genres like horror films, fairy tales and historical portraits. This also signified the end of Sherman's style of using her own body as the subject of her portraits as she began to focus more on anatomical models and dolls.

For her 'Disasters and Fairytales' series Sherman utilised a wide variety of make-up techniques, masks  and prostheses to create a truly shocking and grotesque representation of the body. Joanna Lowry describes the collection as moving towards "...the dark underside of our collective fantasies, a place where the forces of a polymorphous unbridled sexuality and violence are set loose amongst the playthings of the imagination."

Untitled #92 (1981)
www.walkerart.org

Untitled #50 (1985)
www.moma.org

Untitled #140 (1985)
www.moma.org

Untitled #153 (1985)
oscarenfotos.com

iheartphotograph.blogspot.co.uk

Although Sherman's work does not obviously relate to any specific fairy tales, she may prove to be a very influential artist if I decide to go down the route of darkness and horror for the genre of my film. Her work depicts an underlying theme of unease that lies in all classic fairy tales that she has transformed into something very 'in your face'. I particularly like the images depicting a human-pig hybrid and the woman with the dark eyes kneeling on the ground, I find these the most striking of the collection and will take these into consideration when designing my characters.

Student interpretation
bremelvin.com

As a feminist, Sherman's work has always focussed on how the female is portrayed through different mediums; paintings, advertising, films, etc. In this instance it is the portrayal of the female character in classic fairytales. Other feminists like Angela Carter have picked up on this idea and made the distortion of the classic female fairy tale character an integral focus of their work. This is certainly an interesting angle to explore when considering the design features of my characters and is something that I intend to study in more depth.
My research into Sherman's series also led me to a single image; a fashion interpretation from a student based on Untitled #153. Unfortunately, I was unable to track down any more of the student's work to see if the theme was expanded on further. I was surprised to find that the image was so appealing to me as it was entirely fashion based and contained no extravagant make-up or prosthetics, however, I was ever so slightly mesmerised by the eyes of the model and the colour pallet that had been used.