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Stuart Sherman
Stuart A. Sherman (born Woonsocket RI, 9 Nov. 1945; died San Francisco CA, 14 Sept. 2001) was a performance artist, playwright, filmmaker, videographer, poet, essayist, sculptor and collagist. 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 numerous other “spectacles” that included multiple performers, 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). Before he began to mount his own work, Stuart Sherman worked extensively with Charles Ludlam in the early days of the Ridiculous Theatrical Co. and with Richard Foreman’s Ontological-Hysteric Theatre (Sherman appeared as Max in Foreman’s “Pain(t)” in 1974, and Sherman’s First Spectacle was presented on the stage set for Foreman’s “Pandering to the Masses: A Misrepresentation” in 1975).

Stuart Sherman also made over forty films and videos (rarely lasting more than five minutes apiece), 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.

Stuart Sherman was once described as “a Buster Keaton of linguistics.” In his works, specific motifs (e.g., a spinning phonograph record, a diving swimmer, a golf ball rolling across green grass, etc.) are effectively split into semantic layers: the object itself, its name, its image, its function, and even the act of viewing it. These semantic aspects are then recontextualized and repurposed in the pieces; in Sherman’s works, the image of a thing may become more “concrete” than the thing it ostensibly represents. For example, in his 1986 film The Discovery of the Phonograph, Sherman filmed five different locations in New York City, with a different phonograph record assigned to each location playing on the soundtrack. The camera revolves in a circle, as if the camera lens is a phonograph stylus “extracting” music embedded in the urban landscape being filmed. At a number of points, the camera stops its revolving motion and the music runs down and stops. Sherman himself then rushes into the frame and “reeducates” the camera by holding up a phonograph record, singing the appropriate song, and moving his head in a circle until the camera “remembers” and resumes its previous circular motion, which in turn restarts the music on the soundtrack.

Stuart Sherman received numerous awards for his work, including a Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Obie, a MacDowell Colony fellowship, and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Stage Works (Partial Listing)

 * 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 & Noh Karaoke (1993)
 * Scaffolding (1993)
 * Don’t Hang Up, I’m Freezing (1994)
 * A Glass of Fish (1994)
 * Cheers! (1994)
 * Two Pixel Videos (Black & 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)