Douglas Crimp on Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #60, 1980

Back to Reader

here

Art historian and critic Douglas Crimp discusses Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Still #60 (1980).

Part of the exhibition Cindy Sherman, on view at the Walker Art Center November 10, 2012 to February 17, 2013.

Filmed by David Shuff, Calvin Robertson, and Ben Coccio
©2012 The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Four Events that Have Led to Large Discoveries (About Merce Cunningham)

Douglas Crimp

Performing Arts Visual Arts

Four Events that Have Led to Large Discoveries (About Merce Cunningham)

"What was it about Cunningham that made him stand out so," asks art historian Douglas Crimp in his catalogue essay for the 2017 exhibition Merce Cunningham: Common Time. "The dance movement he made—whatever its diverse sources in ballet and modern technique, observation of people in the streets and animals in nature, chance operations, pure invention—was uniquely suited to his own body, and he was its finest exponent." Joining in a worldwide celebration of choreographer/dancer Merce Cunningham's birth—born on this day in 1919—we share Crimp's essay online for the first time as a testament to Cunningham's influence, innovation, and iconoclasm.

Before Pictures: John Killacky on Douglas Crimp's New Memoir

John R. Killacky

Performing Arts

Before Pictures: John Killacky on Douglas Crimp's New Memoir

"Completely Punk Rock": Cindy Sherman's (Nearly) Forgotten History with Babes in Toyland

Paul Schmelzer

Visual Arts

"Completely Punk Rock": Cindy Sherman's (Nearly) Forgotten History with Babes in Toyland

“Cindy Sherman is totally, completely punk rock.” Lori Barbero has some credibility in making that assessment. As drummer of the late, great Minneapolis band Babes in Toyland, she knows the artist well: Sherman’s photographs are on the covers of two Babes albums; her imagery was featured on stage banners; and the artist had a cameo–as doppelganger of lead singer Kat Bjelland–in a 1991 music video.

Marina Abramović on Cindy Sherman’s Untitled #90, 1981