The Life of the Mind: Love, Sorrow and Obsession

Quaintance, Morgan, Art Monthly

The New Art Gallery Walsall 21 January to 20.

'The Life of the Mind: Love, Sorrow and Obsession' is the culmination of Patrick Brill's 18-month residency period at the New Art Gallery Walsall. Better known as Bob & Roberta Smith, Brill and his multiple personae perform separate duties as exhibition curator and participating artists, respectively. While it is possible, and perhaps even necessary, to accept the work of Bob & Roberta Smith as the result of a unique male/female psyche, it is important to recognise the curatorial decisions made here as Brill's own.

Taking its title from a line in Barton Fink, an early Coen brothers film depicting a paranoiac vision of writer's block, 'The Life of the Mind' includes the work of 28 artists, ostensibly dealing with the psychic peaks and troughs of creative labour. However, there is more at play here than what Truman Capote referred to as the 'self-flagellation' of artistically gifted individuals. At the exhibition's heart is Jacob Epstein's First Portrait of Esther (with long hair), …

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Publication information: Article title: The Life of the Mind: Love, Sorrow and Obsession. Contributors: Quaintance, Morgan - Author. Magazine title: Art Monthly. Issue: 344 Publication date: March 2011. Page number: 24+. © 2009 Britannia Art Publications Ltd. COPYRIGHT 2011 Gale Group.

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