When Picasso at the Museum of Modern Art: 80th anniversary exhibition opened in 1962, I was only five years old, but I already had a strong impression of the artist. In front of “Guernica” (1937), my father, at the time deputy director of Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn, undertook to insist on the “genius” of Picasso. It was as if the artist had given him permission to be particularly pompous and overbearing that day, brandishing a sense of grandeur that excluded everyone else, including his own daughter. My gut reaction was to run away—children were safe in art museums back then—and I ended up in MoMA’s surreal art gallery. There I encountered Méret Oppenheim’s furry teacup from 1936 and knew in my heart that it was high art. I didn’t know it was created by a woman, but it summed up all my resistance to my family, my domestic life, and my kindness. Thank god I made that wrong turn.

This year is the 50th anniversary of Picasso’s death and at least 45 official exhibitions are planned to celebrate the occasion. Only one has dared to endorse the status of artist: It’s Pablo-matic: Picasso according to Hannah Gadsby at the Brooklyn Museum. As a result, curators said they received hate mail and the museum was lambasted by critics. When I visited the exhibition, the galleries were packed with women and men (something I had rarely found at exhibitions focused on feminist art) and people were laughing with Gadsby, the comedian who inspired and co-curated the exhibition with museum curators Catherine Morris and Lisa Small. Visitors to the museum did not seem unaware of Picasso’s place in art history, nor did they seem eager to “cancel” it. He just felt that Picasso, like all celebrities, could be taken down a notch and the world wouldn’t fall apart.

In my lifetime there has been a Picasso show that has dominated our viewing time almost every year, but only a great retrospective of Oppenheim. The MoMA alone has featured Picasso’s work in hundreds of exhibitions throughout its history and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2010 exhibition of Picassos from his collection attracted more than 700,000 visitors. The nickname “genius” was used in the first five words of every review of these exhibits. I can guarantee you that I have never read a review or an article beginning with “Picasso, the artist who left several suicides in his wake…” and that I have never seen anyone hesitate to expose the artist, despite the despicable treatment he inflicted on his children, and only a few critics dared to question the master. Worse still, we are perpetually faced with critics who believe that the experience of vicarious reckless behavior is a hallmark of contemporary art and that performing some kind of ironic machismo is essential to winning an audience.

It’s Pablo-matic is a number of things, including a vital survey of feminist art acutely aware of Picasso’s legacy. For example, Joan Semmel’s stunning painting “Intimacy-Autonomy” (1974), intentionally truncates and bifurcates the body, a style synonymous with Picasso, but from a feminine point of view. “Forbidden Fruit” (2009) by Nina Chanel Abney, also turned the finger on the careless repetition of the “nude on the grass” in modernist painting. More importantly, many works – from the Guerrilla Girls to Howardina Pindell’s searing video “Free, White and 21” (1980) – directly target the American ideal that “genius” is a God-appointed, accessible gift. to all, rather than the reality that is most often generated and cultivated by social circumstances, to the exclusion of many.

If you doubt this is still true, just re-read Jason Farago’s review in the New York Times. He seemed particularly embarrassed that Gadsby didn’t have the credentials to put on such a show. They don’t have a doctorate in art history, oh my. Me neither, nor many famous art critics. But God forbid, a non-binary comedian turns his gaze to our culture.

Keep in mind that three quarters of our planet have a very different relationship to modernism and Picasso, something that many critics don’t take into account. In fact, they fall back on Picasso as a reason to ignore or dismiss many other important cultures and art histories. I remember coming back from a trip to China in the early 2000s, enthused by the eruption of creativity in the country with barely any doctoral programs or modern art museums and galleries, and meeting this response from an editor of a leading art magazine: “Yes, but does China even have a Picasso? Too often it still does.

Let’s take a moment to reflect on the good life of Francoise Gilot, who died this week at the age of 101. The Met has only four drawings by Gilot in its permanent collection compared to 400 works by his ex-lover, Picasso. She challenges us to rethink who qualifies as a genius. Let’s uplift those who pursue a career despite the odds against them and show unbridled creativity without the lifelong support that Picasso received. My geniuses include Faith Ringgold, who gave me my first job in the art world, and Martha Wilson, who also offered me a place at the Franklin Furnace Archive. I would also give the title to the late Emma Amos, Joan Semmel, Judith Bernstein and Joyce Kozloff. The latter told me that I could do great things, even as a female artist with children. The many other women artists of It’s Pablo-matic also deserve this recognition, and it’s their true genius that makes this show worth watching.