Creating her own versions of familiar pop cultural characters and moments, Sherman toys with the ways in which media shapes our world, showing that there are in fact many versions of reality. Her earliest works, and perhaps her most iconic, became the Untitled Film Stills series, in which Sherman dressed herself as 50’s and 60’s film stars. Evocative of Hitchcock and other film noir classics, the 70 images in the series are enigmatic, hinting at a dramatic backstory that we can’t quite piece together.
Just as these works urge us to unravel the mystery of her characters, they lead us to ask the same questions of Sherman herself: Who is the woman behind the wigs, makeup and prostheses? Which version of Sherman is her truest self?