Mural, 2010, by Cindy Sherman

 
After a few fallow years, about seven or eight years ago (just about every good artist goes through them) Cindy Sherman quickly returned to form and produced this rather staggering Mural, printed on adhesive fabric, just in time for her big museum retrospective.  One can see something of what she may have learned from Jack Smith here, in the trashy glamor of the costuming and the transparently composed quality of the characterizations.  What isn’t clear from these reproductions is the scale of the figures, which are some three times life size.  These ladies are monumental.  I like to think of them as goddesses protectively hovering over a rebirth of the Dark Ages.