Artists
BOB AND ROBERTA SMITH
Bob and Roberta Smith live and work in London. Past shows at Hales have involved performances, a large installation made with personalised signs on scrap materials and wall based paintings on wooden panels. Smith's DIY approach appropriates the languages of folk, punk and the alternative protest movements to personalise political sloganeering.
Bob and Roberta Smith's work cannot be reduced to one genre. Often it takes the shape of hobbies; music, cooking or DIY which is then combined with a subversive humour. Bob and Roberta Smith attempt to demolish established values and respected authorities and like most humour it is to do with humiliation. Smith challenges the orthodoxies that you are taught at school and which he believes beats the creativity out of you.
Bob and Roberta Smith think it's moral to be absurd and that embracing absurd things is somehow an area of sanity. Much of the work manifests itself in performance, with strong ideas of participation or of the participatory positions similar to those used by the Fluxus in the 1960's.
Bob and Roberta Smith's work cannot be reduced to one genre. Often it takes the shape of hobbies; music, cooking or DIY which is then combined with a subversive humour. Bob and Roberta Smith attempt to demolish established values and respected authorities and like most humour it is to do with humiliation. Smith challenges the orthodoxies that you are taught at school and which he believes beats the creativity out of you.
Bob and Roberta Smith think it's moral to be absurd and that embracing absurd things is somehow an area of sanity. Much of the work manifests itself in performance, with strong ideas of participation or of the participatory positions similar to those used by the Fluxus in the 1960's.