Untitled E 1975

Curator: We’re looking at Cindy Sherman’s "Untitled E," a black and white photograph from 1975. Editor: My first thought is about performance; the dramatic makeup, the deliberate posing—it's all so theatrical. The high contrast adds to that tension. Curator: Precisely! Observe the tight framing; how Sherman's face nearly fills the picture plane. The stark black background accentuates the subject’s constructed persona. There’s an almost palpable flatness, emphasized by the photographic medium itself. Editor: And that persona is so complex. There’s a clear critique of beauty standards at play. Sherman is experimenting with constructed identity. I read it as challenging the male gaze. Consider how her closed eyes further complicate that dynamic. Is she avoiding being seen, or performing being seen? Curator: That ambivalence is essential to Sherman’s oeuvre. Her work often defies singular interpretations. The careful staging and composition foreground artifice and the constructed nature of identity, resisting any simple message about womanhood. Editor: Absolutely, she anticipates later discourse around identity as fluid and performative. "Untitled E", like much of her early work, really opens up this dialogue between image, identity and representation. It seems particularly relevant in the age of social media and curated self-images. Curator: A potent reminder that representation is always a construct, and photography, far from offering a neutral lens, actively shapes how we perceive ourselves and others. Editor: Right, and in that way, Sherman anticipated so much of the conversations we’re still having today about image manipulation and self-fashioning in the digital age. It’s quite brilliant.