Untitled Film Still #7 1977

Cindy Sherman made this black and white photograph, "Untitled Film Still #7," in the late 1970s, as part of a series that explored the representation of women in cinema and media. The image is a carefully constructed performance, referencing the visual language of film. Sherman casts herself in the role of an actress in what looks like a low-budget European film, complete with suggestive accessories. The setting and the black and white medium evoke a particular kind of art-house cinema that was popular at the time. Sherman's "Untitled Film Stills" critiques the limited roles available to women on screen and in society. In doing so, she challenges the very institutions that perpetuate these stereotypes. Sherman’s artistic practice speaks to the second-wave feminist discourse prominent in the US art world at that time, especially in places such as the CalArts, where Sherman studied. To understand Sherman's work, one could research the history of women in film, feminist art theory, and the institutional context of art schools in the 1970s. Art, after all, is always contingent on its social and institutional context.