Untitled (Bus Riders II)

Untitled (Bus Riders II) is a series that Cindy Sherman produced shortly after graduating from the State University College at Buffalo, New York. The fifteen black and white photographs are a significant early example of Sherman’s work, which is viewed as the beginning of her exploration of portraiture and the mechanics of compositional staging.
As its title indicates, the characters that Sherman enacted in the present work were based on people she had encountered and observed on the bus. The boundaries between performance, film and photography become blurred when, by transforming herself through poses and facial expressions, she confers a unique identity to each one of her personas. In each of the fifteen photographs, the artist appears in a different outfit, wearing wigs, glasses and make-up according to the character she portrays. Such props as a cigarette, a make-up mirror, a briefcase, a bulging paper bag and a book provide additional elements to the possible narratives each bus rider harnesses. The characters in Untitled (Bus Riders II), originating from an ordinary, everyday activity, have an ordinary, everyday appearance. Her photographs were breaking the boundaries of conventional portrait, somewhat ironically, by reproducing the normal.
Sherman took perceived notions of identity and turned them on their heads, testing the cultural and conceptual boundaries of her chosen medium. However hard we try, we can never tell exactly what is happening behind each mask that Sherman creates. The series marked the beginning of Sherman finding her voice as an artist, as she paved the path that would ultimately lead to unlock an entire exploration of identity.