{(Extract) Limitations of Art Criticism}[21st June 1990]

[Redbook7:155][19900621:1242]{(Extract) Limitations of Art Criticism}[21st June 1990]

19900621.1242

[continued]

‘“Russian Faces”* in particular suggests the limitations of an art criticism which is chiefly alert to formal excellence and innovation. Such notions cannot accommodate the unfamiliar, often beautiful figurative paintings which we are now beginning to see from Russia and Central Europe. What do we make of Kustodiev, whose picture** manages to be simultaneously memorable and almost mawkishly sentimental?’

– Tanya Harrod reviewing ‘Leningrad in Manchester’,

a festival of Soviet art and design.***

*(an exhibition)

**[A cutting from The Independent article by Tanya Harrod consisting mainly of a reproduction of ‘“Festivities marking the Opening of the Second Congress of the Comintern in Palace Square in Petrograd in July 1920” by Boris Kustodiev’ is attached below this entry in the ms]

***Ind[ependent] 19900621, 14

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