Bob & Roberta Smith, Eileen (2004). Courtesy the artist.
Bob & Roberta Smith bring a DIY approach to art in Help Build the Ruins of Democracy, the latest exhibition at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art.
On show until April 3 2005, the show includes previously unseen works and a new piece, specially commissioned by Baltic.
Bob & Roberta Smith is an artistic enterprise that sets out to bring a little anarchy to people’s perceptions of art through a conceptual, yet playful approach.
As visitors to Baltic for this latest show will find out, their work is all about audience participation and also encourages the idea that art can act as a catalyst for change.
Bob & Roberta Smith. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Photo: Mimi Martel. © The artist.
Perhaps the centerpiece of the exhibition is Eileen, a new commission made from 58 concrete panels that form the walls of an improvised three-sided shack.
Eileen tells the story of a woman whose life is shaped by a series of chance occurrences.
The panels recall an extended conversation between the artist and a friend, ‘Eileen’, who grew up in a divided Ireland in the 1960s and 70s and ultimately it is a story about the stupidity of prejudice.
Another piece, Conference in Bremen, questions notions of leadership and vehicles for decision-making.
Bob & Roberta Smith. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Photo: Mimi Martel. © The artist.
The artists staged an event in the Bremen parliament building where eight characters from history, including Mozart, Winston Churchill, Martin Kippenberger, Jacques Tati, and Jesus Christ, meet to resolve some of the world’s most pressing problems.
The exhibition also includes several of Bob & Roberta Smith’s text pieces, which have become something of an artistic signature.
With their inconsistent typeface, they offer slogans that lampoon figures from cultural history, politics, fashion and art.
Sometimes misleading and often derogatory, they can be anarchic or absurd, but in recent works there’s a note of distrust and dismay at a perceived failure of leadership in current world events.
Bob & Roberta Smith. BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. Photo: Mimi Martel. © The artist.
Bob & Roberta Smith will also maintain a production facility and open workshop to make more concrete castings over the course of the exhibition.
Within the gallery space there are several sofas weighed down by cement panels and a small copse of bare wooden branches waiting to be added to with visitor’s quick sketches and caricatures of their leaders.
Throughout the exhibition viewers will be invited to create texts, drawings and rubbings on paper so it can develop and expand throughout its duration.
Bob and Roberta Smith’s past exhibitions include Intelligence at Tate Britain in 2000, Bad Behaviour, a National Touring Exhibition in 2003/4 and Art Crazy Nation at MKG in 2002.
