Art Brill is commonly known as Bob and Roberta Smith in his artistic career. Smith paints slogans in a brightly coloured lettering style on banners and discarded boards of wood and exhibits them in galleries of
contemporary art across the world. The slogans are usually humorous musing on art, politics, popular culture, Britain and the world in general and they often support his activist campaigns, such as his 2002 amnesty on bad art at Pierogi Gallery, New York. Noted for sign painting, Smith also makes sculpture using cement, as in his 2005 Cement Soup Kitchen at
Beaconsfield Gallery, London. A sculpture he proposed was shortlisted for the
fourth plinth in
Trafalgar Square, London. In March 2005, he was commissioned to curate a series of five public art projects in the
Thames Gateway housing estates of
Essex. The projects were collectively named
Art U Need and were documented in a diary-format book by Smith in 2007. Writing of a launch event in "glittering
Notting Hill Gate" (i.e. in fashionable and central Kensington),
Lynn Barber said of Smith: "It was a startlingly unsuitable subject for such a glossy audience, but he held them spellbound. I see him as a sort of
Ian Dury of the art world, someone who keeps on trucking, doing his own thing, making absolutely no concessions to fashion or marketability, but generally giving pleasure to everyone who comes across him." In 2013, he was on the
Museum of the Year selection panel. He is on the
Tate board as an artist member. He created a project, the Art Party, in 2013 to make contemporary art more accessible, demonstrate its ability to influence meaningful conversation and political thought. It was launched at the
Pierogi Gallery in New York and at the
Hales Gallery. An
Arts Council sponsored a two-day conference at Crescent Arts in North Yorkshire that year. It brought more than 2000 people who attended discussions of art education in schools and lectures, listened to music and attended performances.
Musician Brill performs music, often with a group he co-founded, The Ken Ardley Playboys,
2015 election Brill stood in the
Surrey Heath constituency in the
2015 general election, under his working name, Bob and Roberta Smith. He won the fewest votes in the constituency, receiving 273 votes (0.5%) and losing his deposit. The seat was won by incumbent MP
Michael Gove. == Collections ==