Guy Anthony Baliol Brett (1942–2021) was an English art critic, writer and curator. He was noted for a personal vision, particularly of cultural production of an experimental character. He is known for the promotion of Latin American artists, and for drawing attention to kinetic art during the 1960s in Europe and Latin America.

Life

He was the son of

Lionel Brett, 4th Viscount Esher Lionel Gordon Baliol Brett, 4th Viscount Esher, 4th Baron Esher CBE (18 July 1913 – 9 July 2004) was a British peer, architect and town-planner. He succeeded to his title on the death of his father in 1963. Early life Brett was born in Winds ...

and his wife Helena Christian Pike, a painter. He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. intended as a sister institution to King's College, ...

. Brett began his writing career with art criticism for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' (1963–1964). In 1964 he started his publishing connection with the ''Signals Newsbulletin''. He was art critic for ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

'' from 1964 to 1975. In 1974 Brett went to

Hu County Huyi District (), formerly known as Hu County or Huxian (, written as / before 1964, (same for both ways of writing)), is one of 11 urban districts of the prefecture-level city of Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi Province, Northwest China. The ...

(Huxian) in the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

to meet artists, in connection with an official exhibition ''Peasant Painters of Hu County''. He was then employed by the British Arts Council to write English text and a catalogue for the show. John Higgins of ''The Times'' not long after detected a political streak in Brett's journalism, and dismissed him. Brett was Visual Arts Editor of ''City Limits'' from 1981 to 1983. In 1979/80, Brett taught as guest lecturer at

Goldsmiths College Goldsmiths, University of London, officially the Goldsmiths' College, is a constituent research university of the University of London in England. It was originally founded in 1891 as The Goldsmiths' Technical and Recreative Institute by the Wo ...

in London. He died in 2021 of Parkinson's disease and pneumonia, survived by his wife and children.

Gallerist and curator

Brett early found a direction with his involvement in the gallery Signals London (active 1964–6). There a group of kinetic artists formed, brought together around Brett,

David Medalla David Cortez Medalla (23 March 1942 – 28 December 2020) was a Filipino international artist and political activist. His work ranged from sculpture and kinetic art to painting, installation, and performance art. Early life David Cortez Med ...

and Paul Keeler. The gallery grew out of the Centre for Advanced Creative Study (CACS), run in 1964 in Cornwall Gardens, London from the flat shared by Keeler and Medalla. Supported also by

Gustav Metzger Gustav Metzger (10 April 1926, Nuremberg – 1 March 2017, London) was a German artist and political activist who developed the concept of Auto-Destructive Art and the Art Strike. Together with John Sharkey, he initiated the Destruction in ...

and Marcello Salvadori, CACS moved in November 1964 to premises at 39

Wigmore Street Wigmore Street is a street in the City of Westminster, in the West End of London. The street runs for about 600 yards parallel and to the north of Oxford Street between Portman Square to the west and Cavendish Square to the east. It is named aft ...

owned by Paul's father Charles, renamed as Signals London. It took that name from works of kinetic sculpture by Takis. Signals showed Sérgio de Camargo,

Lygia Clark Lygia Pimentel Lins (23 October 1920 – 25 April 1988), better known as Lygia Clark, was a Brazilian artist best known for her painting and installation work. She was often associated with the Brazilian Constructivist movements of the mid-2 ...

Li Yuan-chia Li Yuan-chia (, 1929–1994) was a Chinese artist, poet and curator. He incorporated installations, works and photography into his art, and was one of a small number of artists of Chinese background active in the UK during his lifetime. Early ...

Hélio Oiticica Hélio Oiticica (; July 26, 1937 – March 22, 1980) was a Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, painter, performance artist, and theorist, best known for his participation in the Neo-Concrete Movement, for his innovative use of color, and for ...

, Jesús Rafael Soto and

Mira Schendel Mira Schendel (June 7, 1919 – July 24, 1988) was a Brazilian contemporary artist of the 20th century. She made numerous drawings on rice paper, but was also active as a painter, a poet, and a sculptor. Her work drew upon the art of language and ...

, as well as Takis. When Signals closed in 1966 it left some legacy of artists with the Indica Gallery of John Dunbar and

Barry Miles Barry Miles (born 21 February 1943) is an English author known for his participation in and writing on the subjects of the 1960s London underground and counterculture. He is the author of numerous books and his work has also regularly appeare ...

. It was meeting Camargo in Paris in 1964 that led Brett to write on

Brazilian art The creation of art in the geographic area now known as Brazil begins with the earliest records of its human habitation. The original inhabitants of the land, pre-Columbian Indigenous or Natives peoples, produced various forms of art; specific c ...

. He started to correspond with Schendel in 1965. That year, Brett and Keeler met Hélio Oiticica in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...

. The plan to mount a solo show for him survived the closure of Signals. In 1969 Brett gave major support to Oiticica by curating in London, at the

Whitechapel Gallery The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery in Whitechapel on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The original building, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opened in 1901 as one of the fir ...

, an exhibition of his work dubbed by the artist the "Whitechapel Experiment", though officially it was "Eden". ''In Motion'' (1966) was an Arts Council-funded touring kinetic art exhibition, curated by Brett, his first large show. Works were included by Clark, Medalla, Takis,

Pol Bury Pol Bury (26 April 1922 – 28 September 2005) was a Belgian sculptor who began his artistic career as a painter in the Jeune Peintre Belge and COBRA groups. Among his most famous works is the fountain-sculpture L'Octagon, located in San Franci ...

and

Jean Tinguely Jean Tinguely (22 May 1925 – 30 August 1991) was a Swiss sculptor best known for his kinetic art sculptural machines (known officially as Métamatics) that extended the Dada tradition into the later part of the 20th century. Tinguely's art ...

. With Vicente Todolí he co-curated the

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...

2008/9 exhibition for

Cildo Meireles Cildo Meireles (born 1948) is a Brazilian conceptual artist, installation artist and sculptor. He is noted especially for his installations, many of which express resistance to political oppression in Brazil. These works, often large and dense, e ...

Activist

Brett was co-founder in the 1970s of the group Artists for Democracy (AFD), following the

1973 Chilean coup d'état The 1973 Chilean coup d'état Enciclopedia Virtual > Historia > Historia de Chile > Del gobierno militar a la democracia" on LaTercera.cl. Retrieved 22 September 2006. In October 1972, Chile suffered the first of many strikes. Among the par ...

. The other founding members in 1973–4 were John Dugger, David Medalla and Cecilia Vicuña. One of the participants was Rasheed Araeen. An AFD exhibition in 1974 received backing from the Chilean academic and diplomat Álvaro Bunster,

Harald Edelstam Gustav Harald Edelstam (March 17, 1913 – April 16, 1989) was a Swedish diplomat. During World War II he earned the nickname ''Svarta nejlikan'' ("the Black Pimpernel," a reference to the Scarlet Pimpernel) for helping hundreds of Norwegian Jew ...

and

Judith Hart Constance Mary Hart, Baroness Hart of South Lanark, (née Ridehalgh; 18 September 19247 December 1991), known as Dame Judith Hart, was a British Labour Party politician. She served as a government minister during the 1960s and 1970s before ...

. It was at an AFD meeting in 1976 that

Gavin Jantjes Gavin Jantjes (born 1948 in District Six, Cape Town) is a South African painter, curator, writer and lecturer. Life Jantjes attended the Michaelis School of Fine Art at the University of Cape Town from 1966 to 1969. He left apartheid South Africa ...

met Barry Barker of the

Institute of Contemporary Arts The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...

and was able to exhibit there. Brett himself met Alejandra Altamirano at an AFD event in 1974 — they were married in 1978.

Works

* ''Kinetic Art: the Language of Movement'' (1968) * ''Peasant Paintings from Hu County, Shensi Province, China'' (1976), editor Hugh Shaw * ''Through Our Own Eyes: Popular Art and Modern History'' (1986) * ''Transcontinental'' (1990). For Brett's exhibition ''Transcontinental: Nine Latin American Artists'' at the

Ikon Gallery The Ikon Gallery () is an English gallery of contemporary art, located in Brindleyplace, Birmingham. It is housed in the Grade II listed, neo-gothic former Oozells Street Board School, designed by John Henry Chamberlain in 1877. Ikon was se ...

and

Cornerhouse Cornerhouse was a centre for cinema and the contemporary visual arts, located next to Oxford Road Station on Oxford Street, Manchester, England, which was active from 1985–2015. It had three floors of art galleries, three cinemas, a booksho ...

, including works by Waltércio Caldas, Juan Davila, Roberto Evangelista, Jac Leirner,

and Tunga. The book covers also Eugenio Dittborn, Victor Grippo and Regina Vater. * ''Exploding Galaxies: The Art of David Medalla'' (1995) * ''Mona Hatoum'' (1997) * ''Force Fields: An Essay on the Kinetic Art'' (2000), for the show ''Force Fields: Phases of the Kinetic'' he curated at the

Hayward Gallery The Hayward Gallery is an art gallery within the Southbank Centre in central London, England and part of an area of major arts venues on the South Bank of the River Thames. It is sited adjacent to the other Southbank Centre buildings (the R ...

. * ''Li Yuan-chia: tell me what is not said yet'' (2001) * ''Carnival of Perception: Selected Writings on Art'' (2004) * ''Brasil Experimental: Arte/Vida Proposições e Paradoxos'' (2005) * ''Oiticica in London'' (2007) * ''The Crossing of Innumerable Paths: Essays on Art'' (2019) * ''Takis'' (2019), Tate Modern exhibition book, curator with Michael Wellen Brett wrote further monographic essays on artists. One on Rasheed Araeen appeared as introduction to Araeen's ''Making Myself Visible'' (1984). Others treated included

Derek Boshier Derek Boshier (born 1937, in Portsmouth) is an English artist, among the first proponents of British pop art. Greene, Alison de Lima (2000). Texas: 150 Works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers. New York, New ...

, Lygia Clark, Rose Finn-Kelcey, Brion Gysin,

Susan Hiller Susan Hiller (March 7, 1940 – January 28, 2019) was an American-born artist who lived in London, United Kingdom. Her art practice included installation, video, photography, performance and writing. Early life and education Born in Tallah ...

, Tina Keane, Ghisha Koenig,

Lygia Pape Lygia Pape (7 April 1927 – 3 May 2004) was a Brazilian visual artist, sculptor, engraver, and filmmaker, who was a key figure in the Concrete movement and a later co-founder of the Neo-Concrete Movement in Brazil during the 1950s and 196 ...

and Aubrey Williams. He contributed to the short-lived magazine ''Black Phoenix'' in 1978 run by Araeen and Mahmood Jamal, and then its successor ''

Third Text ''Third Text'' is a leading peer-reviewed academic journal covering art in a global context. After founder and editor Rasheed Araeen's earlier art magazine ''Black Phoenix'', which started in 1978 and published only three issues, ''Third Text'' ...

'' edited by Araeen from 1987.

Notes

External links

''A Piece Of Sky Is Missing!''
interview by Gulsen Bal, from ''Sanat Dunyamiz'' Issue 98, Spring 2006
''Tribute to Guy Brett'', pipaprize.com
Luiz Camillo Osorio, 21 February 2021

Hester R. Westley, 1 April 2021 {{DEFAULTSORT:Brett, Guy Anthony Baliol 1942 births 2021 deaths English art critics English journalists People educated at Eton College