Which is Torvill?
Sir: Sewell and Auty — Auty and Sewell. In the current debate on falling standards of art criticism (Arts, 21 May), they have become the Torvill and Dean of the Lon- don art world. When one is attacked the other rushes to his defence. In the minds of your other correspondents they have come to be regarded as either the last champions of sanity in a mad world of an institution- alised avant-garde, or old reactionaries out of step with their times.
Either way it is easier to know what they are against — the Goldsmith School of Art, conceptual art in general, most feminist art, the Tate Gallery and its director, Nick Serota, Damien Hirst, etc. — than it is to know what they are for.
Why doesn't some enterprising museum or gallery — ideally one of those places such as the Serpentine or Whitechapel Gallery which they love to attack — invite them to curate an exhibi- tion of contemporary artists whom they, in fact, admire?
Ian Dunlop
Kensington Mansions, Trebovir Road, London, SW5
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