Untitled,

1990–91

Since the late 1970s, Sherman has taken photographs of herself as various feminine personae, from film heroines to fashion plates, to expose the cultural clichés in representations of women. In this photograph, a prosthetically pregnant Sherman renders grotesque the styling conventions of magazine cover girls, including tousled hair, dramatic makeup, and bronzed skin, while also exaggerating tropes used by these publications to display and sexualize the models’ bodies, such as torn or wet clothing. By simultaneously evoking two gendered stereotypes—the vixen and the mother—Sherman has complicated simplistic ideas about the roles of women in contemporary society.