In the film Guest of Cindy Sherman, the photographer's former lover set out to tell the story of an art star, but, according to a critic writing in The American Prospect, winds up presenting a "creepy, cringe-inducing rehash of a relationship's failure, told through intimate home-movie footage and the annotations of friends. Importantly—albeit inadvertently—it is also a film that illustrates the misogyny still pervasive in the art world today, a misogyny that Hasegawa-Overacker both records and exudes."

Sherman’s work questions the role and representation of women in society, and Hasegawa-Overacker's argument, as presented in The American Prospect, is that "the market swung once wildly in the direction of the macho, so the swing toward the feminine represented by Sherman's enduring success must be some sort of overcorrection."

Beyond the strange world of Hasegawa-Overacker's film, that feminine swing is still evident in the art world. The up-and-coming, 24-year-old UK photographer and painter Sarah Maple is feeding an art world buzz. Maple grew up in southern England struggling with her Muslim/western identity and explores that identity in her art. Having been compared to Cindy Sherman, her provocative work explores sexuality, feminism, religion and culture, and she has been making headlines since her first solo exhibition “This Artist Blows” in London in 2008, as featured in Red Pepper.

Some of her paintings were so controversial that a gallery showing them was vandalized and put under police surveillance. The painting which received the most heated debate within some Muslim communities depicts the artist in a headscarf cradling a baby piglet. In her piece I Love Orgasms, black fabric covers her entire face and body except a small slit for the eyes and a white pin exclaiming, you guessed it, “I love orgasms” on her chest. In an interview with Red Pepper about the themes of religion and sexuality in her art, Maple explains “a lot of my work is quite cathartic it gives me the opportunity to explore the sorts of things I wouldn’t explore in my actual life. I can use art as an outlet—especially with sexuality.”

As for the Sherman connection, she brushes it off: "Yeah, it’s funny, everyone says Cindy Sherman to me and I’ve never looked at her work. I know of her because everyone keeps saying Cindy Sherman, Cindy Sherman. So I’ve looked at her and now I quite like it. People think I’m trying to copy her, but I’m not. I’m not really even familiar with her work."

Sources: The Amerian Prospect, Red Pepper

Top, Cindy Sherman Untitled #132. Image by hragvartanian licensed under Creative Commons.   

Bottom, Passport by Sarah Maple. Image by libbyrosof licensend under Creative Commons.

Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti shares the highlights (and occasional lowlights) of what's landing in our library each week.

Utne's library is abuzz with a steady flow of 1,300 magazines, journals,weeklies, zines, and other dispatches from the cultural front that are rarely found in big-box bookstores or newsstands. 

Featured in this week’s episode: 

- High Country News on remembering the nuclear west

- The state of American charcuterie, from The Art of Eating (not available online)

- Nigerian author Chris Abani on humanity and writing, in a special issue of Witness on “Dismissing Africa” (PDF)

- Advice for activists on running productive meetings, from Red Pepper (not available online)

Sources: High Country News, The Art of Eating, Witness, Red Pepper

When Sarah Palin was asked what magazines or newspapers she read before she was John McCain’s vice presidential candidate, she said, “all of them.” (Video below.) Clearly, then, she reads Utne Reader. She went on to say, “I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news.” I thought I saw her skulking around our library of 1,500 publications. Using her logic, I dug into our library and put together a list of other sources that Sarah Palin must read:

Russian Life : This English-language bimonthly must be a valuable resource for understanding Russian-American relations, if “Putin ever rears his head.”

Ms. Magazine : As one of the best-known feminist publications, Ms. likely helps Gov. Palin keep track of the latest in feminist thought.

The Chronicle of Higher Education : In the debates last night, Palin said of Joe Biden’s wife, who works as a teacher, “God bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right?” This magazine, which profiles people working to get teachers some reward in this life, is probably on her reading list, too.

$pread: One of the only magazines for sex workers, this magazine gives a voice to people not often heard in most other media. The latest issue has a “Sex Worker Voter Guide” that says, “ No major presidential candidate in American politics today can be said to embrace a genuinely pro-sex worker agenda,” but the fact that Sarah Palin reads the magazine must be a start. Right?

What else do you think Sarah Palin might read?

Image adapted from original by  T toes , licensed under  Creative Commons . 

Watch a video of Palin talking about her reading habits below: