Riding the Subway, Rubbing Shoulders With Picasso.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority and its advertising contractors routinely review the content of subway ads, keeping their eyes out for things that are too racy or rude. But they have never had an ad quite like one that came their way recently: an image of five naked women (probably prostitutes) vamping it up and staring down the viewer. The fact that the frontal nudity is fully Cubist and was painted by Picasso more than a century ago undoubtedly made the decision a lot easier. And so on Monday, a glossy reproduction of that artwork, ''Les Demoiselles d'Avignon,'' took its place underground in the Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street subway stations in Brooklyn, with copies of 57 other works from the Museum of Modern Art that will briefly transform the cavernous stations into a kunsthalle. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]