Function of Play in the Art of Cindy Sherman
The very talented, Cindy Sherman, has made a successful career of making photographs of herself, based out of New York. She is one of our top contemporary artists of today. Danielle Knafo, an art psychoanalyst from Long Island University, acknowledges that art historians have analyzed Cindy Sherman’s work in three ways: from a feministic point of view, a narcissistic view, and a fiction view. In this article however, Knafo wishes to offer another perspective, that which is play. Danielle Knafo believes child play has many features similar to adult’s artwork, especially Sherman’s artwork. Knafo writes, “I hope to demonstrate that Sherman's art represents an arena, much like Winnicott's potential space, a location existing between mother and child, external and internal reality, in which [End Page 139] conditions are created for the growth of authentic agency through play” (Knafo). In this essay, I will summarize Knafo’s article and her perspective of Sherman’s artwork, along with explaining why this information is important to young people growing up today, viewing her photographs.
Knafo begins her article by comparing play and creativity, from a writer or an artist. She explains that art work, like child’s play, is geared towards satisfaction and accomplishment. Knafo successfully makes this connection and appears reliable by quoting two very famous psychologists, Freud and Winnicott, and using their research to demonstrate her thesis effectively. She concludes that both men would agree with Winnicott’s theory, “"It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self” (Knafo). Danielle Knafo then gives the readers her examples from Sherman’s work and her reasoning for connecting Sherman’s artwork with idea of children’s play.
Knafo explains Sherman’s work in five chronological phases: Dressing Up (1977-1980), Masquerade (1980-1985), A Grim Fairy Tale (1985-1989), Playing House (1988-1990), and Doll Play (1992-1995). She lists countless pieces of Cindy Sherman’s artwork for each phase and supports why she believes they represent that certain aspect of child play. For example, for phase IV: Playing House, Knafo uses Sherman’s “History Portraits” series to reveal her evidence. In this series, Knafo notes that Sherman uses acting, makeup, and costume brilliantly, along with representing pictures with mother and child. Sherman also takes on male appearances in this phase, which according to Knafo, symbolizes her use of “fantasy and reality in the child's relationship to the parents through her multiple and shifting identifications” (Knafo). By using different identities, Sherman is “playing house.” The question is however, why is the correlation between child’s play and Sherman’s art work, important to us?
Cindy Sherman has made her name known, that goes without question. She is a very gifted artist of our time, who many of us admire. But what can we learn from her masterpieces and also, Knafo’s interpretation of Sherman’s work? First, I think it is important to realize that our creativity now does in fact show a relationship with our play of childhood. In both, we escape and deny reality and instead turn towards a fantasy. We want to think about and create fantasies so we can be whoever we want to be (man, women, doctor etc.). Through art and play, we can experience this fulfillment that we virtually can’t in society, or at least can’t without the fear of being discriminated against or shunned by others in our communities. Sherman reveals this empowering thought to her viewers, of taking on the unthinkable and unknown. Knafo writes, “Using her body as a way to express and work through her deepest fears, she [Sherman] demonstrates the discomfort we all feel within our own and the struggle to become comfortable living within one's body skin (Smith 1990). No matter where we turn, we confront our own reflection; it is sometimes distorted, and often frightening, but always familiar.” (Knafo).
Knafo, D. 1996. “Dressing Up and Other Games of Make-believe:
The Function of Play in the Art of Cindy Sherman.” American Imago 53.2 (1996) 139-164
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_imago/v053/53.2knafo.html
Smith, R. 1990. "A Course in Portraiture by an Individualist with a Camera." The New York Times. January 5, C19.
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