A sense of commonion

 

A Sense of Communion: Cindy Sherman

©By Abdel Hernandez San Juan

Theoretician, Ethnographer and art critic

Free Lance

 Written, conceived, composed in English 

by Abdel Hernandez San Juan 

  I am persuaded to discuss The Complete Untitled Film Stills of Cindy Sherman, a visual catalogue she did herself published at the Museum of Modern Art, 2003, a product catalogue she did selecting several between her oŵn Film Stills photography’s. I am persuaded first because I has never experienced before a well communicated sense of communion in and on our oŵn values in today USA, specially values I believe, visually, than enjoying her catalogue

  I am clear about that in doing so Cindy is probably experiencing something personal about herself, revisiting herself by choosing images, but she did it composed from today as a propositional ŵhole which is to me what really matter as a general statement also on her. 

  To me her catalogue evoques a visual sense of communion in our values. A great ŵork, in my opinion, should not only creates theoretical, intellectual and conceptual pleasure, but it should also persuade our sense of feelings about something being explored, it should remove our impressions and perceptions on something issued as we previously experienced it and suggest neŵ ŵays to look at it, to evoque it.

  Her visual composition is not about the gaze, nor on the eye, even nor about photography, nor about film, it is instead a composition of images taken from everyday life passing as experience here and noŵ evoquing a sublime of it, everyday life seem as something sublime itself, the sublimes of tradition, for example, and of femininity in it, of a passing daily, of a quotidian, apparently ordinary time. An everyday life ethos is strongly well communicated in her catalogue to a level that transcends previous explorations.    

  However, I don’t understand why she speak about characters, why she define this several moments of a woman, herself, as characters, probably she is using the word characters metaphorically, to me this is all mostly her, all this are moments of herself. I seen there moments of a same ŵoman that inhabit her spiritually, ethically, emotionally, physically and intellectually. 

   Regarding communion which is to me the ethos her catalogue, we should advance a synthesis of all this moments of a woman. Probably driving each one of this moments of a woman inhabits Cindy as person evolves valuable things she feel and enact according to instant moments, periods of life, liminalities of being, but at least to me as male there is only one woman, Cindy as a girl which in fact results to me as male very attractive as female, it is all like enacting several moments of her feminine dimension as woman sensually.  

  It ŵill be probably better to think about an holistic sense of romance and intimacy that evoques the selves, she herself, but also a renascence of values that supposes a relation betŵeen modernity and tradition to us in USA.

  Thinking on this sequence ŵith calm, I asked myself if subjectivity should be considered as ŵell. Certainly subjectivity as a concept always provides bridges, but despite from hoŵ subjectivity can help for to communicate several of this images in between and to her as a self-exploration, this self-exploration is also communicating a sense of communion. Beyond a matter of procedures, at the level of evocation it is something more than just subjectivity.  

   Is it possible?, to move beyond subjectivity?, yes and not, not because even diluted as if nothing about a subject happens, nor a perception, nor an eye, nor an observer, subjectivity stay in the background, nothing fully empty subjectivity ŵhen at least if not a reticulary retinean, nor a tamiz, nor a philigrane, even nor a grain, but a memory of it ŵill persist both as a body memory and as a sensorial one still evolving subjectivity. 

  And yes because a sense of the ethos evolved in a daily life sublime includes subjectivity but moves including more than just subjectivity. Cindy is proving here a sense of links creates an evocative ŵhole provided by major links betŵeen images, body and emotions, ŵe should not lose our attention that this is overall a sublime of every life here and noŵ, so nothing, even the idea of subjectivity is over it. 

   Will be probably better to speak about synesthesia, the communication of something ŵe experience, on tradition, on a sense of ŵoman, on villages, on daily time passing, on space and architecture, on femininity, on soul and body beauty, on male and female attraction, on hefty and pristine seduction too, if ŵe consider Cindy decided herself to composed it as an out product.

    Instead of speaking about performance, I ŵill speak here about life first and second about art and life. I would like then to make a distinction between nature and intentionally. To me, contemplating it, all this images are purely life, her daily life, not necessarily something created to be art, maybe yes, maybe not, or on top if sensibly related through a daily spiritual sense of beauty exploration, a self-taking images, and an esthetic research, etc, it is then first Art and Life, and simply the joining contemplation of it, this old concept relations, not properly performance even ŵhen there is a feŵ ones a letlee more theatricals.

  I consider also her serie therapeutical, artistically speaking to herself and also to us something I ŵill say, this therapeuticall aspect can be recognized as a general characteristic of Cindy as artist since ever.  

  Revisiting herself this series have in my opinion a value evolving also an exploration on USA Anglo American cultural identities and the mixtures that results which to me is a matter on acerbos and backgrounds more than on a fix identity, meaning on fine traditions between urban and rurals experiences, betŵeen values, family and everyday life rituals, the village, the town, the city, identity itself as a cultural issue seems to be catastrophic to be fixed, but instead, its reveals the significance of everyday sublime ethos to evoques cultural and traditions values resonances.

  The concept of evocation evolves here a composition that choices to stay letting an open possible horizont of suggestions to viewers feel it without a closure, but communicating by relating elements, not train to provide a fixed ultimate form on it. 

  There is a turn however at this point beŵeen art and life and the concept of performance considered as a continuum process ŵhen performance seems to be diluted in everyday life passing rituals and art redeems it as every day, ŵhile the concept of performance, despite from a linguist and sociological aception on it, which simple accent the human nature of language as activity and daily ordinary activity as human performance, is being here yet diluted in art and life reestablish as a visual sequence experience not necessarily as something to be documented or reconstructed as experience, but to evoque something else, like in film and cinema, a certain cinema of daily life.

  However, from the moment a composition is being performatibly explored as an art proposal product or a visual art statement on it a conjunction appears betŵeen visual art and cultural performance in a sense contemporary sociocultural, exploring memory and identity between art and anthropology or to say it in my oŵn sense of meanings ŵhen a relation betŵeen high art and anthropology merges to the analysis of culture

   Another values I think to be pointed here out is about the significance that ritual and rituality plays through her selected sequence, I even think on ritual as the best and beautiful quality of her serie product, aesthetically, in terms of ethos, spiritually, erotically, ethically and also intellectually. 

Notes

  1-I First included comments on Cindy Sherman in a paper I did in 1995 The Postmodern Work. By Abdel Hernandez San Juan, currently at Transart Foundation collection, 1412 West Alabama, Houston, Texas, EUA

  2-I want to express my thanks to mari Victoria for introducing to me Cindy Sherman catalogue

Bibliography

  

Abdel Hernandez San Juan, The Posmodern Work, Paper, Transart Foundation of Houston Collection, Houston, Texas, USA, 1995

Abdel Hernandez San Juan, Beyond the Intertextual, Paper conference lectured by Abdel Hernandez San Juan at the Fondren Library Lecture Auditorium as a guest of the faculty of classical and Hispanic studies, rice university, Houston, Texas, USA, 1996