Bob & Bob: Forget Everything You Know

Since the 1970s, the performance art duo Bob & Bob have infused their terse and insightful observations of American culture with a strong dose of humor.

As noted on the performance art blog Another Righteous Transfer! in 2010, the pair "adopted the persona of a couple of 'idiots, innocents … just in from the Midwest,' all the better to freely stumble and bumble through the sprawling wilderness of this big city, pushing up against social boundaries and evincing a touching sense of earnest humanity along the way."

In "Young Turks," the two men — individually known as The Dark Bob and Paul Bob — discuss making art downtown circa 1980.

"What we did was play around in this city and find out what people want, what they're doing," The Dark Bob says. "We involved ourselves. We did it with them.
"We found out people dug drugs, people dug sex, people dug throwing their money around. So we made work about it. It was all influential out of this city."

"Young Turks" also includes a performance in which the Bobs' floating heads make random observations of things they learned on a two-month road trip across the country, a trek that had changed their perspective, not only of their home city, but of the American people in general.

Bob & Bob continue to produce paintings, short films and recordings in adjacent Santa Monica studios, both as a team and as individual artists.

The Dark Bob has released several albums of music written and performed by himself. Much of the soundtrack of "Young Turks" is comprised of songs from the Dark Bob's albums, "Kingdom Come," "An Ever Ominous Dream," "The Sadness of Superman" and "Monkey Do."

Paul Bob Velick is a Los Angeles-based life coach for "men who are seeking their own path of personal authority, professional power and freedom."