Stuart A. Sherman was a performance art

Performance art

In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...

ist, playwright

Playwright

A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...

, filmmaker, videographer

Videographer

Strictly speaking, a videographer is a person who works in the field of videography, video production — recording moving images and sound on video tape, disk, other electro-mechanical device. News broadcasting relies heavily on live television where videographers engage in electronic news...

, poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

, essayist, sculptor and collagist. He was born 9 November 1945 to Helen Gordon and Samuel Sherman in Providence, Rhode Island

Providence, Rhode Island

Providence is the capital and most populous city of Rhode Island and was one of the first cities established in the United States. Located in Providence County, it is the third largest city in the New England region...

. Soon after attending Antioch College

Antioch College

Antioch College is a private, independent liberal arts college in Yellow Springs, Ohio, United States. It was the founder and the flagship institution of the six-campus Antioch University system. Founded in 1852 by the Christian Connection, the college began operating in 1853 with politician and...

 in Yellow Springs, Ohio

Yellow Springs, Ohio

Yellow Springs is a village in Greene County, Ohio, United States, and is the location of Antioch College and Antioch University Midwest. The population was 3,487 at the 2010 census...

, Sherman moved to Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 and began a career in the arts which would span the next three decades. Before mounting his own work, Stuart Sherman worked extensively with Charles Ludlam in the early days of the Ridiculous Theatrical Company and with Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theatre (Sherman appeared as Max in Foreman's "Pain(t)" in 1974).

Sherman was possibly best known for his solo "spectacles": programs of very short playlets performed on tabletops, in which he would physically manipulate and create semantic "dramas" around inanimate objects. He created and performed eighteen "spectacles" in all (12 solo and 6 group performances) as well as larger-scale dramatic works, including Chekhov, Brecht and Strindberg (1985–86), a trilogy of short plays adapting and commenting obliquely on those authors, Slant (concerning Emily Dickinson) (1987), and Solaris (1992).

Stuart Sherman also made over forty films and videos (rarely lasting more than five minutes), many of the most haunting of which were portraits of friends: Portrait of Benedicte Pesle (1984), Mr. Ashley Proposes (Portrait of George) (1985), Liberation (Portrait of Berenice Reynaud) (1993), and the 73-second Edwin Denby (1978). Nearly all of Stuart Sherman's film works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...

. Although best known for his performances and video, Sherman practiced in a variety of visual and literary mediums. He considered all of his artistic practices to share a performative dimension, and denied any guiding aesthetic principle. Sherman was wary of attributing any strict meaning to his work and assumed an essential polysemy

Polysemy

Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e., a large semantic field.Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, the links between these senses form a network, and ...

 in its interpretation. This assumption critically aligned Sherman's work with that of many of his downtown contemporaries.

Akin to the many distinct forms his art took, Sherman's work found an international audience. Although perhaps most at home with his New York contemporaries, he performed, exhibited, and lectured throughout the US (San Francisco, Cambridge

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...

, Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, Indianapolis

Indianapolis

Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

) and abroad (Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

, France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

).

Stuart Sherman received numerous awards for his work, including a Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

, a Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowship

Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...

, an Obie

Obie Award

The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards given by The Village Voice newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City...

, a MacDowell Colony

MacDowell Colony

The MacDowell Colony is an art colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, U.S.A., founded in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, pianist and wife of composer Edward MacDowell. She established the institution and its endowment chiefly with donated funds...

 fellowship, an Asian Cultural Council

Asian Cultural Council

The Asian Cultural Council is an American non-profit organization dedicated to providing support to Asian-American cultural exchange in the areas of visual and performing arts.- History :...

 grant, a DAAD

German Academic Exchange Service

The German Academic Exchange Service or DAAD is the largest German support organisation in the field of international academic co-operation....

 grant for residency in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

.

Sherman died of AIDS

AIDS

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

 in San Francisco on 14 September 2001.

Stage works

• First Spectacle (1975)
• Second Spectacle (with Stefan Brecht, Richard Foreman, Kate Manheim) (1976)
• Seventh Spectacle (with 30 performers) (1976)
• Tenth Spectacle (Portraits of Places) (1978)
• Eleventh Spectacle (The Erotic) (1979)
• Twelfth Spectacle (Language) (1980)
• Thirteenth Spectacle (Time) (1980)
• First Trilogy: Hamlet, Oedipus, Faust (1981–84)
• Second Trilogy: Chekhov, Strindberg, Brecht (1985–86)
• The Man in Room 2538 (1986)
• It Is Against the Law To Shout "Fire" In A Crowded Theater (1986)
• Endless Meadow and So Forth (1986)
• This House Is Mine Because I Live In It (1986)
• Slant (concerning Emily Dickinson) (1987)
• Crime and Punishment, or the Book and the Word (1987)
• "A" Is For Actor (1987)
• The Yellow Chair (1987)
• But What Is The Word For "Bicycle"? (1988)
• The Play of Tea, or Pinkies Up! (1989)
• Objects of Desire (1989)
• Knock, Knock, Knock, Knock (1989)
• Fourteenth Spectacle (1989)
• Taal Eulenspiegel (1990)
• Fifteenth Spectacle (1991)
• Sixteenth Spectacle (It's a Musical!) (La Mama E.T.C., March 18, 1991)
• Solaris (1992)
• Seventeenth Spectacle (Yes and Noh) (1993)
• Eighteenth Spectacle (The Spaghetti Works) (1993)
• Nineteenth Spectacle (But Second Musical) (La MaMa E.T.C., Jan. 10, 1994)
• Queer Spectacle (1994)
• The Stations of the Cross, or the passion of Stuart (2000)

Filmography

• Globes (1977), 2:41
• Scotty and Stuart (1977), 2:22
• Skating (1978), 2:44
• Tree Film (1978), 1:30
• Edwin Denby (1978), 1:13
• Camera/Cage (1978), 2:57
• Flying (1979), 0:50
• Baseball/TV (1979), 1:12
• Hand/Water (1979), 1:37
• Piano/Music (1979), 1:17
• Roller Coaster/Reading (1979), 3:00
• Fountain/Car (1980), 0:39
• Rock/String (1980), 0:55
• Elevator/Dance (1980), 3:12
• Theatre Piece (1980), 0:52
• Bridge Film (1981), 1:20
• Racing (1981), 1:05
• Typewriting (Pertaining to Stefan Brecht) (1982), 2:06
• Chess (1982), 1:20
• Golf Film (1982)
• Fish Story (1983), 0:52
• Portrait of Benedicte Pesle (1984), 0:56
• Mr. Ashley Proposes (Portrait of George) (1985), 1:35
• Eating (1986), 6:10
• The Discovery of the Phonograph (1986), 6 min
• Scotty Snyder (All Around the Table) (1987), 10:13
• Berlin Tour (1988), 12 min
• Black-Eyed Susan (Portrait of an Actress) (1989), 9 min
• Liberation (Portrait of Berenice Reynaud) (1993), 8 min

Videography

• Five Flowers (1982)
• Berlin (West)/Andere Richtungen (1986)
• Gray Matter (1987)
• Video Walk (1987)
• Yes and Noh Karaoke (1993)
• Scaffolding (1993)
• Don't Hang Up, I'm Freezing (1994)
• A Glass of Fish (1994)
• Cheers! (1994)
• Two Pixel Videos (Black and White/Grain) (1994)
• The Leap (1994)
• Bill Rice's Beer Garden (1994)
• Son of Scotty and Stuart (1994)
• Me and Joe (1994)
• 8 Eggs (1994)
• Pull (A Portrait of David Nunemaker) (1994)
• News Break (1994)
• Holy Bible (1994)
• Ah-Choo (1994)

Awards

• Prix de Rome
• Guggenheim Fellowship
• Obie
• MacDowell Colony fellowship
• Asian Cultural Council
  Asian Cultural Council
  The Asian Cultural Council is an American non-profit organization dedicated to providing support to Asian-American cultural exchange in the areas of visual and performing arts.- History :...
  
  Grant
• DAAD Grant for residency in Berlin
• grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.

External links

• Diagram Poems and Performance Pieces*