A new politically alert exhibition of work by Bob & Roberta Smith opens at Hales Gallery. Claire Flannery has a look, well three looks in fact.
I visited Bob and Roberta Smith (aka Patrick Brill)’s new exhibition at Hales Gallery three times in as many days and it got less fun each time. This is not a complaint. Entirely the opposite. The work is a lot of fun and Patrick’s tongue is so far wedged into his cheek it would take a serious accident to get it out. Opening’s are pretty much always fun (unless the art is depressingly bad, or incredibly good but all you can see are drawling heads, mouths and hats in front of the works). But this one was particularly feel-good stuff: fun in a folksy Sunday afternoon at your laid-back relations way.
With just enough shiny-cheeked students having a Beck’s or two, Patrick chatted away happily with his grown-up friends while listening to a talented dude playing folk on his bike-powered guitar and amp. The bike is still there along with three others powering musical and inflatable artworks, with your help. There was even an unidentified pensioner with a lovely beard looking calmly delighted with the whole affair and wandering around the placards and objects on his own like me.
The very next day, tumble weed: just me. That’s how it goes. But this time I got to have a proper look and I pretended that I had broken in (in my head kind of) to Patrick Brill’s studio. That’s what it feels like, sort of like a tidied up studio. There’s nothing precious going on – he's not pretending there are polished edges to his work in how it’s displayed. There's none of that cleaning it up and sanitising it for the posh, dainty folks' Minimal tastes. And he makes it look easy. The colourful placards and wooden wall pieces with such distinctive lettering and optimistic and pessimistic eco and political messages are attractive. They tickle and goad us.
The third time I went was with my Artfeelers tour (shameful plug). And things got very serious. As Paul Hedge, who runs Hales, spoke to us, honestly, frankly and very insightfully about Bob and Roberta, the work and Hales itself, I actually felt a bit out of it, a bit trippy even.
The surface playfulness of it all melted into the many pretend socially-concerned conversations that we've all had. The exhibition demonstrates how useless are those sunny Sunday political protests, marches and placards – and how happy the powers that be are for us to vent our anger in such an ineffectual yet conscience-clearing way. Bob and Roberta Smith are deadly serious. Patrick’s not wasting his time. Unfortunately too many of us are.
Bob & Roberta Smith - This is how we are going to change the world. I should be in charge is at Hales Gallery until 10th April 2010.
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