Matters of truth permeate public discourse, yet what the word itself denotes remains unstable, and the connection of truth utterances to the real is always at issue. This is a truism, but the contours of our fascination with truth, fact, objectivity—and somewhat belatedly, authenticity—have evolved, in tandem with the social changes brought about by the growing consolidation of industrial capitalism and the corollary urbanization.

I knew Linda Nochlin for many years from “around”—around the feminist art community, I suppose is what I mean, and also from her days at the Institute.