Bob and Roberta explore Art and Democracy. For Make Your Own Damn Art at the Stanley Picker Gallery, Bob and Roberta built a vast Barricade of the Mind made from texts and placards with slogans depicting the highs and frustrating lows of life on Earth.
Bob sometimes feels like the world is against him.we all do. Barricades are set up to prevent people crossing. Bob and Roberta’s barricade provided the information with which to assail itself: a theatrical construction – dividing ‘The Dark Side of the Mind’ from ‘The Inlitenment’ – running with rats and equipped with the bows and arrows to defend a world of ideas. Assail your own barricade and liberate the mind!
The title of the show took its name from Bob and Roberta’s new book by Black Dog Publishing which further explores the implications for art practice both for the life and mind of the artist and the health of society. Alongside Barricade of the Mind were some of the key works featured in the book.
Bob and Roberta Smith are a brother and sister duo born in London but brought up in North Yorkshire. Bob went to Goldsmiths’ College in the 90’s, Roberta went to Kingston Polytechnic in the 80s. They are an artistic enterprise, sincere in their ambition to bring anarchy to people’s perception of art through a conceptual yet playful approach to art and art making.