Cindy Sherman Quotes

Quotes about:

• I’m trying to make other people recognize something of themselves rather than me.

  Cindy Sherman

  People, Trying

  Cindy Sherman, Marianne Stockebrand, Westfälischer Kunstverein (1985). “Photographien”

  70 Copy quote

• I like making images that from a distance seem kind of seductive, colorful, luscious and engaging, and then you realize what you're looking at is something totally opposite. It seems boring to me to pursue the typical idea of beauty, because that is the easiest and the most obvious way to see the world. It's more challenging to look at the other side.

  Cindy Sherman

  Distance, Opposites, Ideas

  68 Copy quote

• Nowadays, with digital printing, it's so easy to make everything perfect, which is not always a good idea. Sometimes the mistakes are really what make a piece.

  Cindy Sherman

  Photography, Art, Mistake

  "It Began with Madame de Pompadour". Interview with Susan Sollin, art21.org. July 2013.

  84 Copy quote

• I feel I'm anonymous in my work. When I look at the pictures, I never see myself; they aren't self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.

  Cindy Sherman

  Self, Portraits, Looks

  41 Copy quote

• Everyone thinks these are self-portraits but they aren't meant to be. I just use myself as a model because I know I can push myself to extremes, make each shot as ugly or goofy or silly as possible.

  Cindy Sherman

  Silly, Thinking, Self

  66 Copy quote

• The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.

  Cindy Sherman

  Promise, Stories, Photographer

  64 Copy quote

• I wanted to create something that people could relate to without having read a book about it beforehand.

  Cindy Sherman

  Art, Book, People

  Cindy Sherman, Zdenek Felix, Elisabeth Bronfen, Martin Schwander, Deichtorhallen Hamburg (1995). “Cindy Sherman: photographic work 1975-1995”, Schirmer/Mosel

  59 Copy quote

• We're all products of what we want to project to the world. Even people who don't spend any time, or think they don't, on preparing themselves for the world out there - I think that ultimately they have for their whole lives groomed themselves to be a certain way, to present a face to the world.

  Cindy Sherman

  Thinking, People, World

  41 Copy quote

• If I knew what the picture was going to be like I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already – the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.

  Cindy Sherman

  Thinking, Challenges, Trying

  "Studio: Cindy Sherman". Interview with Betsy Berne, www.tate.org.uk. June 1, 2003.

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• I am always surprised at all the things people read into my photos, but it also amuse me. That may be because I have nothing specific in mind when I'm working. My intentions are neither feminist nor political. I try to put double or multiple meanings into my photos, which might give rise to a greater variety of interpretations.

  Cindy Sherman

  People, Giving, Feminist

  39 Copy quote

• I can be fearlessly strong at times to protect an inner frailty.

  Cindy Sherman

  Strong, Protect

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  4 Copy quote

• Being able to make a living doing something one truly loves to do - is my definition of success.

  Cindy Sherman

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• I didn't want to make 'high' art, I had no interest in using paint, I wanted to find something that anyone could relate to without knowing about contemporary art. I wasn't thinking in terms of precious prints or archival quality; I didn't want the work to seem like a commodity.

  Cindy Sherman

  Art, Thinking, Knowing

  55 Copy quote

• The work is what it is and hopefully it's seen as feminist work, or feminist-advised work, but I'm not going to go around espousing theoretical bullshit about feminist stuff.

  Cindy Sherman

  Feminist Art, Bullshit, Stuff

  "Studio: Cindy Sherman". Interview with Betsy Berne, www.tate.org.uk. June 1, 2003.

  30 Copy quote

• My message for people to not take anything for granted, to respect what they might not understand.

  Cindy Sherman

  People, Granted

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  7 Copy quote

• Early in my career, a critic said that I needed to "explain" the irony in my work, suggesting that I needed to add text next to the images to help people understand what I was trying to say. At first I was dismayed that I wasn't making work with a clear enough message. That's when I realized that that was the exact opposite of what I wanted to do - that I wasn't responsible for a misinterpretation of my work, that there should be some ambiguity to it. They either got it, or they didn't.

  Cindy Sherman

  Opposites, Careers, People

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  48 Copy quote

• [My work is] maybe about me maybe not wanting to be me and wanting to be all these other characters. Or at least try them on.

  Cindy Sherman

  Character, Trying, Cindy

  29 Copy quote

• The way I see it, as soon as I make a piece I’ve lost control of it.

  Cindy Sherman

  Pieces, Way, Photographer

  31 Copy quote

• I’m really just using the mirror to summon something I don’t even know until I see it.

  Cindy Sherman

  Mirrors, Photographer, Knows

  "Studio: Cindy Sherman". Interview with Betsy Berne, www.tate.org.uk. June 1, 2003.

  27 Copy quote

• Dreamers are those who have achieved in love and life, because it is a dream that got them there.

  Cindy Sherman

  Love, Dream, Life And Love

  10 Copy quote

• In horror stories or in fairy tales, the fascination with the morbid is also, at least for me, a way to prepare for the unthinkable… That’s why it’s very important for me to show the artificiality of it all, because the real horrors of the world are unmatchable, and they’re too profound. It’s much easier to absorb – to be entertained by it, but also to let it affect you psychologically – if it’s done in a fake, humorous, artificial way.

  Cindy Sherman

  Real, Humorous, Horror Stories

  26 Copy quote

• Some people have told me they remember the film that one of my images is derived from, but in fact I had no film in mind at all.

  Cindy Sherman

  People, Mind, Facts

  Cindy Sherman, Régis Durand, Carole-Anne Tyler, Jean-Pierre Criqui (2006). “Cindy Sherman”, Flammarion-Pere Castor

  6 Copy quote

• So many things suddenly made sense for the clowns, for the whole idea. I’d been going through a struggle, particularly after 9/11; I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to say. I still wanted the work to be the same kind of mixture – intense, with a nasty side or an ugly side, but also with a real pathos about the characters – and clowns have an underlying sense of sadness while they’re trying to cheer people up. Clowns are sad, but they’re also psychotically, hysterically happy.

  Cindy Sherman

  Cheer, Real, Struggle

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• I didn't think of what I was doing as political. To me it was a way to make the best out of what I liked to do privately, which was to dress up.

  Cindy Sherman

  Thinking, Political, Dresses

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• I don't think I can see the world through other people's eyes, but I can capture an attitude or a look that makes others think I can. I have an appreciation for why people choose to look the way they do. But I can't know what they experience.

  Cindy Sherman

  Appreciation, Attitude, Eye

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

  36 Copy quote

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