"[T]he expanded MoMA is making obvious efforts to reshape its image without going entirely off-brand — to tell the tale of what might be called Modernism Plus, with globalism and African-American art added...."

"The first gallery, now labeled '19th Century Innovators,' is pretty much a painting hit parade — Cezanne’s 'Still Life with Apples' (1895-98), Rousseau’s 'The Sleeping Gypsy' (1897) and, straight ahead, van Gogh’s 'The Starry Night' (1889).... But to this familiar two-dimensional European world MoMA has introduced an American wild card: half a dozen nugget-like ceramic bowls and jugs by George Ohr (1857-1918), the self-proclaimed 'Mad Potter of Biloxi.'... The gallery [that is] a virtual Picasso shrine, with his 1907 'Les Demoiselles d’ Avignon' at the center, and related pictures ranged around it [includes]... a 1967 painting, acquired in 2016, by the African-American artist Faith Ringgold depicting an explosive interracial shootout. Titled 'American People Series #20: Die,' it speaks to 'Demoiselles' both in physical size and in visual violence. And just by being there it points up the problematic politics of a work like Picasso’s — with its fractured female bodies and colonialist appropriations — that is at the core of the collection. MoMA traditionalists will call the pairing sacrilegious; I call it a stroke of curatorial genius.... Multicultural is now marketable. To ignore it is to forfeit profit, not to mention critical credibility."

Writes Holland Cotter in "MoMA Reboots With ‘Modernism Plus’/If they moved Monet, don’t despair. There are stimulating ideas and unexpected talents at every turn, from Africa, Asia, South America, and African America. (And plenty of works by women.)" (NYT).