On March 26, I participated in the panel Cindy Sherman: Circle of Influence at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Organized and moderated by Eva Respini, we discussed Sherman's influence on contemporary art in conjunction with her survey exhibition on view until June 11, 2012. Others included on the panel were George Condo, Elizabeth Peyton, and Collier Schorr. Condo discussed how his career emerged at the same time as Sherman's, given us examples of how they may have had some of the same influences. Peyton and Schorr talked about how Sherman's star was on the rise while they were still in school here in New York. An image of Sherman modeling for a painting was included in Peyton's presentation. Schorr, as with myself, presented a video with images and music. With a reworking of Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", I also presented a spoken word narrative performance over my video which included images from the exhibition with one image of mine (I added the second later).
Sherman was introduced to my work by one of my former art dealers Pascal Spengemann and has been very supported of my work since. The narrative in the video highlights my experience with her work. This is a recorded version of what I presented that night.
"Ladies, gents, da churen, all......my video tribute to Ms. Cindy Sherman!"
Once I began putting my presentation together, I went online to see if anyone had put Sherman's images to Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" before or if any exhibitions had been created around the same idea. I found a few write ups and a short film that seems to be inspired by Sherman and Lauper. This is when I decided I should definitely rework the song for my video, but still included it here because the discussion was about Sherman's influence. In addition, I felt it backed what I remembered witnessing in school about her influence.
I also thought I would throw in the following two works as well.
I believe we should revere those who have paved the way for us. To Cindy Sherman, I say.... THANK YOU!!!!!