By Roberta Smith
In “Cindy Sherman: Once Upon a Time, 1981-2011,” a show organized with the independent curator Philippe Ségalot, three series from Ms. Sherman’s prolific career go head-to-head. They suggest an indomitable drive to reinvent her work while maintaining the variety and general ease of her landmark Untitled (Film Stills) series of 1977-80. Both her 1981 Centerfolds series, with its prone, vulnerable-looking young women, and her 2008 Society Portraits of scrupulously turned-out matrons feel somewhat repetitive here. In contrast, the History Portraits (1990) still disturb, with their cursory reprises of old master portraits of both sexes, replete with undisguised body and facial prosthetics. There are other notable Sherman series that remain startlingly rude. Too bad they weren’t chosen.