CINDY SHERMAN

• 

  print December 2016

  the best of 2016

  TO TAKE STOCK OF THE PAST YEAR, ARTFORUM ASKED AN INTERNATIONAL GROUP OF ARTISTS TO SELECT A SINGLE IMAGE, EXHIBITION, OR EVENT THAT MOST MEMORABLY CAPTURED THEIR EYE IN 2016.

  ALEX HUBBARD

  Rodin’s The Thinker, 1880–81, after a bomb planted by the Weather Underground exploded on March 24, 1970, at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Photo: C. D. Moore.

  ANNE COLLIER

  Portrait of Hilton Als by Catherine Opie, wrapped in bubble plastic, as it appeared in “James Baldwin/Jim Brown and the Children,” curated by Als for the Artist’s Institute, New York, June 14.

  SLAVS AND TATARS

  A disposable, self-administering

• 

  passages November 19, 2013

  Sarah Charlesworth (1947–2013)

  I FIRST KNEW of Sarah Charlesworth through reproductions of her hauntingly beautiful series “Stills,” the large black-and-white photos of people jumping to their death. (The title’s coincidence with my own series escaped me at the time.) I’m sure if I’d seen them in person I would have been doubly impressed by their large format, unheard of in 1980.

  And I had seen Sarah around, here and there at art events, but she completely terrified and intimidated me, with her white gloves, cigarette holder, black vested suit, and crisp white shirt. My one interaction up until then had been at a party for

• 

  print September 2012

  Cindy Sherman

  I decided to work with photography because, for me, it was the fastest means to an end. I wanted to concentrate my energy on ideas and be able to see the results quickly.

  I began as a naive realist painter, copying from photographs or magazines or, sometimes, collages of both. But I never felt a calling for painting; while I was skilled, the act of copying was where my talent lay. There was no point to why I painted or what I copied. It was time-consuming.

  At first, the technology of even old-fashioned cameras and darkroom printing intimidated me. I failed my first photography course. I didn’t

• 

  print December 1999

  BEST OF THE ’90s: FILM

  
  CINDY SHERMAN, artist:
  Thomas Vinterberg’s brilliant The Celebration (1998) is especially important because it signals the future of the medium, away from Hollywood’s excesses.

  JOHN WATERS, filmmaker: During the 1994 Cannes Film Festival I was sick in bed with the flu on the night Pulp Fiction premiered. Suddenly, from blocks away I heard the most stupendous roar of approval from the opening-night audience. I was so pissed to have missed the night Quentin Tarantino became an instant cinematic icon. But once I saw the movie I knew he deserved it. I guess you could call me a Quentin-hag.

  KIMBERLY