Cindy Sherman: Imitation of Life

(through Oct. 2) at The Broad

Decades of her wide-ranging conceptual portraiture are in this phenomenal show, particularly well-suited to the Broad's ground floor gallery space.

There's something arresting and disturbing about the precise way that these photographs catalog and confront the role that class, culture, religion, art history, money, together with self-regard, indulgence, entitlement and society-infused narcissism are caught relentlessly in her images.

Is Sherman mocking the show-crafting of these highly recognizable women, exposing the artificial strait-jacket of"femininity" in history, or just showing us how, wittingly or unwittingly, we re-designed ourselves to "be" them. The fascination is how easily the make-believe becomes the real.

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