Bob and Robert Smith

Bob and Robert Smith

I have recently written an essay about this artist as his work is inspired me for the activism in Graphic design. I wanted to look at him again for his work because his typographic work is inspirational and how he uses the printing processes to print his imagery, I believe I recall from the visiting lecture last year he used the letter press alot and screen print to print his imagery. 

Here is a couple website links I used below.

https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/bob-and-roberta-smith-art-is-a-human-right

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/art-artists/name/bob-and-roberta-smith-ra

https://www.artfund.org/get-involved/art-happens/folkestone-is-an-art-school/ten-facts-about-bob-and-roberta-smith

He is best Known for his child’s art by using advocated art protecting art education. “All schools should be art schools!”  his artwork involves a lot of typography and printing his work covers the themes of, Political Activism, using graphics, social commentary and fine art.  

His work is very good for campaigning and promoting his activist points such as the letter he wrote to Michael Gove in 2011, the piece he did for writing down the ww1 veterans names in Belfast, also the saving the arts campaign he did in 2015 Childs art really captured my attention on how I could use some of his activist techniques fighting for the importance of the arts... Good man for that too.

Bob & Roberta Smith’s way of interpreting activism involves a campaign fighting to save the arts, with education, where he created placards and wrote a letter to Michael Gove about saving art education, and making it a piece of typographic art, as like me he believes in the importance of art education.  He has added an act of activism is creating artwork involves people, by socially engaging with them and interacting with people, for instance, one of the main ways of his activism, is in the way he works is aimed to fight to save the arts. “People might accuse me of a sort of political naivety, but I think it’s a different kind of politics.” By fighting against the more academic spectrum from mistreating and underestimating the arts.  

He also has created work based on the 1960’s Easter Rising wars, where the Irish fought for British Soldiers, he has done a typographic painting based on people’s names from the WW1 in Belfast, which is a group piece of activism on its own. Which socially engages and involves others, and it makes people reminisce back into the days of WW1 allowing the notions of nostalgic thoughts making people think in an activistic way, but the main things I want to address is his work focusing on child’s art with his Political Activism. 

As he created a piece called Art Makes Children Powerful, which was the letter to Gove, written in 2011 about taking art education more seriously. As he says “Michael Gove is a politician, I profoundingly disagree with but I wasn’t trying to sling mud at him. I wanted to show him why the arts are important” this is something I for one feel very strongly too, I agree with what Bob and Roberta Smith is fighting to save art education and I am glad he wrote the letter and used it as a piece of art back in 2011.  

Point is his work has inspired me to create billboards, posters and placards in the same aesthetic as what he has done in his work.

Heres some examples of his work:

Letter to Michael Gove 2011

Very good man! this is his act on activism to help fight save the arts and again I applaud him for doing that as the arts are seen as unimportant and under appreciated which is a very sad thing and 14% of children refuse to chose art as a subject because of it being told its not Important which is devastating to me.

Again this work is very simplistic and quirky, it works well to get the message across and I like the idea he blew up the letter in a bigger size to emphasise the importance of the arts. 

2015 Art makes children powerful 2015

Art Makes people powerful 2015

BLOODY GOOD MAN!

Sounds mad that I am saying this, but I can completely agree with him as an art student myself. I have never been one for the mathematics or any other kinds of academic, the arts have helped me get to where I am today as a graphic design student.  Anyway, with  his work is brilliantly set out, purely just typographic and I hope to accumulate this aesthetic in a similar way to how Bob & Roberta Smith has created his imagery. 

Make art, not war

This to me is very striking and is something I hope to achieve in my campaign work when I start creating imagery, Bob and Roberta Smith's work has a child like feel to this project, which would be perfect if I was preaching my campaign to children but unfortunately as my campaign is about period Poverty I don't feel 5 year olds need to learn about the dangers of period poverty. But his work is fighting for a strong point and contain the word war so I feel this piece is aimed for a older audience. which is why I am speaking about this piece... I feel it has a strong and dominant message which is what I am hoping to achieve and in this piece of work the typographic element to this piece is very good and has that retro aesthetic to it I felt and I really like the colour scheme. something very geeky here... if you notice I wont know if this was deliberate but this poster spells art diagonally starting with the "a" on the make and then the "r" in art and the "T" in the word not. very clever I must add/ 

Could my work be the next Bob and Roberta Smith aesthetics? Who knows?