Any critic whose name is on the mailing lists of museums and galleries soon becomes inured to the extravagant claims found in press releases. So much so that the most bounteous string of superlatives is likely to be met with little more than a sigh. Yet there are occasions when a press-release statement, made on behalf of an artist or exhibition, is so preposterous that it can cause even the initiated reviewer to blanch. Such a moment came for this writer upon receiving notice of the exhibition “Metropolitan Lives: The Ashcan Artists and Their New York” at the New-York Historical Society. In the press release, we are informed that one aspect of the show deals with the Ashcan School’s take on “changing gender roles.” Only in the politicized art world of the 1990s could it be suggested that stalwart fogeys like George Luks and John Sloan occupy the same ideological turf as Cindy Sherman.

The curators of “Metropolitan Live ...

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