Community: feminist.bloggers@brooklynmuseum

Cindy Sherman, the incomparable feminist photographer will be honored tomorrow as part of the Brooklyn Museum’s annual Women in the Arts Luncheon! Sherman’s work was invaluable to the feminist art movement in the late seventies, forcing viewers to consider the significance of “the gaze” in Western culture. Through the use of costumes and role-play in her self-portraiture, Sherman helped to redefine the notion of gender as something performed rather than innate. Women in the Arts 2008 will celebrate her contributions to feminist art during the awards presentation tomorrow, followed by a reception and luncheon.

This event coincides with the current exhibition here at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Burning Down the House: Building a Feminist Art Collection, which includes Sherman’s Untitled (detail), 1975/2004, an early photograph that precludes Sherman’s famous Untitled Film Stills series by two years and references the gender bending, surrealist photographer Claude Cahun. For information on Women in the Arts 2008, click here.

(Cindy Sherman (American, b. 1954). Untitled (detail), 1975/2004. C-print. Printer Charles Griffin, Inc. Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Linda S. Ferber, 2005.10. Courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures.)