Untitled Film Still #15 1978

Cindy Sherman made this black and white photograph, Untitled Film Still #15, to, well, not really tell us anything much at all! The grey scale is limited, and this means we focus on tone, how the light is hitting things, creating areas of highlight, and shadow. Look at her leg, how she poses it, just so, but the light falls flatly across it, erasing some of its volume. The brick wall also feels deliberately artifical. The process here feels less like capturing a real moment, and more like constructing one from found elements. The bricks almost look like they are part of a stage set, something like de Chirico, or maybe early Godard. But here, unlike those artists, Sherman embraces ambiguity. Nothing is real, it’s all a fiction. This is like the opposite of truth, but maybe that is the point. It's a thought.