Blockbuster Bloat

What is a Cindy Sherman photograph? For starters, not quite a photograph—or so it’s been said. Critics favor this kind of brow-furrowing negative when writing about Sherman’s art: it’s not quite photography, not quite self-portraiture, not quite mimesis. At the same time, her work is constantly being compared to what it literally isn’t. Arthur Danto thought Sherman created “performances”; others have suggested that she creates something like cinema. Of S