Stuart Sherman

"Sherman's movies resemble his one-man shows in their suggestive, rebuslike juxtaposition of gestures and props. There's the same deadpan whimsy, but a greater degree of imagistic freedom... All psychodrama ultimately derives from Maya Deren, but Sherman is Deren's heir in even more specific ways. His films make especially clever use of the montage 'creative geography' that she pioneered in AT LAND - although Sherman does so not in the service of creating a dreamlike space so much as a means of supplying visual jolts and formal analogies. Like Deren, Sherman is an ingenious editor... The best of his visual puns have a Magritte-like poetic kick... There's a touch of Keaton in Sherman's stolid, off-hand persona." - J. Hoberman, Artforum

"... the tangible deliberateness of the composition of Sherman's films and the economy of his juxtapositions are worked out in a gesture of concision. Through the simplicity, clarity, and brevity of the images an acute sense of elegance and rightness is created. Like riddles, jokes, koan, and paradoxes, Sherman's films operate on this edge of sense, in a world of wonder." - Sally Banes, Millennium Film Journal

10 Films by Stuart Sherman (17-26)

Elevator/Dance

Camera/Lighting/Editing: Mark Daniels; Cast: Power Booth, Judy Henry, Art Feinberg, Camille Foss.

1980, 16mm, b&w/si, 3:12m

Racing

Camera: Mark Daniels, Jacob Burckhardt; Lighting/Editing: Mark Daniels.

1981, 16mm, b&w/so, 1:05m

Bridge Film

Camera/Editing: Patrice Kirchhofer.

1981, 16mm, b&w/si, 1:20m

Typewriting

(Pertaining to Stefan Brecht)

Camera/Lighting/Editing: Mark Daniels; Cast: Nick Howe, Andrea Dorman.

1982, 16mm, b&w/so, 2:06m

Golf Film

Camera: Adam Zucker, Mark Daniels; Animation: Joey Ahlbum; Editing: Mark Daniels; Voices: Scotty Snyder, Bob Fleischner, George Deem, Julia Heyward, Stuart Sherman.

1982, 16mm, color/so, 50sec

Portrait of Benedicte Pesle

Camera/Lighting/Editing: Jeff Kotter; Cast: Stuart Sherman.

1984, 16mm, b&w/si/so, 56sec

Mr. Ashley Proposes

(Portrait of George)

Camera/Lighting/Editing: Jeff Preiss; Cast: George Ashley.

1985, 16mm, b&w/si, 1:35m

Eating

Camera/Lighting: Michael Falasco; Editing: Dan Walworth; Cast: Stuart Sherman.

1986, 16mm, color/so, 6:10m

The Discovery of the Phonograph

Camera/Lighting: Michael Falasco; Editing: Martin Koerber; Cast: Stuart Sherman.

1986, 16mm, color/so, 6m

Scotty Snyder

(All Around the Table)

Camera/Lighting: Michael Falasco; Editing: Dan Walworth; Cast: Scotty Snyder.

1987, 16mm, color/so, 9.5m, $30

Package: 1980-1987, b&w/color/si/so, approx. 32.75m, $100

Berlin Tour

Camera/Lighting: Carsten Kruger; Editing: Martin Koerber; Cast: Stuart Sherman and fifteen others.

1988, 16mm, color/so, 12m, $35

Black-Eyed Susan (Portrait of an Actress)

Camera/Lighting: Michael Falasco; Editing: Suzanne Pillsbury; Cast: Black-Eyed Susan.

1989, 16mm, color/so, 9m, $30

Liberation (Portrait of Berenice Reynaud)

1993, 16mm, color/so, 8m, $25