Arte: Some day his plinth will come

Patrick Brill, aka Bob and Roberta Smith, is an original and free-spirited artist whose work, says Lynn Barber, would bring a bit of pizzazz to Trafalgar Square

In pictures: The future of the fourth plinth

Sunday April 27, 2008
The Observer

Yet another reason for hoping Boris Johnson does not become mayor of London is that he has pledged to dump the fourth plinth competition and put a Spitfire on it instead. This will go down a storm with his usual Toryboy fanbase who couldn't care less about public art but do like Spitfires, but it's a tragic loss for Londoners like me who welcome a bit of art pizzazz in Trafalgar Square.

Also, much as I love Tracey's meerkats, I was really hoping Bob and Roberta Smith would win. He must inevitably count as the outsider against five much more established names - Tracey Emin, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor, Yinka Shonibare and Jeremy Deller - but his Faites l'Art, Pas la Guerre, powered by wind and sun, looks amiable enough - colourful, eco-friendly, eccentric, much like the man himself.

His real name is Patrick Brill but for some reason (possibly because his father, Frederick Brill, was head of Chelsea Art School) he chose to operate under a pseudonym. He has a sister called Roberta, but she is a psychiatric nurse, not an artist. Nevertheless, she features as a pungent critic in his new show at the Hales Gallery in Shoreditch, east London, which consists of 'diaries' painted in his usual distinctive signwriting on planks. One of the diary boards says: '4 February 2008. Roberta, my sister phoned, We got into an argument. She said all you do is paint what ever the first thing that comes into your head on bits of old floorboard, you can't even spell.'

True, but I have a weakness for artists (Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Bob and Roberta Smith) who can write but not spell. It shows a sort of free-spirited gaiety I think, the opposite of those sticklers who know every use for a semi-colon, but never have anything interesting to say.

Bob and Roberta says the show is more personal than usual, about his memories rather than about politics, because he's just turned 45 and keeps thinking about death. '17 May 2007, I went to the doctor. He had the results of my brain scan. He said your brain is ok, but there are some areas of damage in your frontal lobe. He said, "Don't worry, the damage is insignificant." I said, "It might be insignificant to you, mate. That's my brain you are talking about."'

His brain seems fine to me. I saw him a few weeks ago holding forth to a glittering Notting Hill Gate crowd including Stella McCartney at Miller's Academy about his Art U Need project to bring art to the benighted housing estates of the Thames Gateway.

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. I hope Boris loses and he gets the fourth plinth.

Fill this space: the plinth story

1841 The plinth was built for an equestrian statue of William IV but was left empty after funds ran out.

1999 The Fourth Plinth Project was established by the Royal Society of Arts. Mark Wallinger, Bill Woodrow and Rachel Whiteread were chosen to fill the space in successive years.

2005 Marc Quinn's sculpture of the pregnant artist Alison Lapper, born with no arms and shortened legs, was unveiled after the Greater London Authority took over responsibility for the space.

2007 Thomas Schütte's eight-ton glasswork Model for a Hotel 2007 replaced Quinn's sculpture on the plinth.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/visualart/story/0,,2276433,00.html