LONDON — Who’re — or, higher, what’s — Gilbert & George? British-born George Passmore (the taller one) and Gilbert Prousch, the shorter Italian one from San Martin de Tor within the South Tyrol province, met at St Martins College of Artwork in 1967. In 1969 they donned fits tailor-made in an already classic model (the tweed three-piece that grew to become their uniform), slathered themselves in multicolored metallic paint and sang “Underneath the Arches.” This was the primary iteration of themselves as art work. Since then, the oddball duo in archaic English costume have lived and labored collectively in East London as maybe one of many authentic, most full, and longest working examples of efficiency artwork. They communicate as one, are married, and seem collectively almost on a regular basis, however all the time as their very own artwork.
The issue with being the art work, one would assume, is that it’s financially and virtually unsustainable as a profession (at the very least with out a decades-long demand for singing sculptures). Thus out of necessity they turned to visible output: large-scale photomontages composed of smaller panels, like stained glass home windows, all the time that includes the 2 males. Judging from the lending establishments named within the Hayward Gallery’s 25-year survey, Gilbert & George: twenty first Century Photos, these works have confirmed to be collectible. The record contains, variously, the Burger Assortment, Hong Kong, Tate; Museum of High quality Arts, Houston; and several other personal collections (curiously, a number of in Vienna), amongst many others.
Gilbert & George, “Bagrave” (2020)
Rachel Thomas, the Roden Chief Curator, together with assistant curators Suzanna Petot and Hannah Martin, appear to have positioned the works in response to the out there wall form, for the Hayward’s unusually sized and spaced partitions are crammed. There are not any captions itemizing identify, date, and possession, and the set up follows no chronological order. Every bit has a yr, title, and the artists’ trademark signature embedded inside it. A wall textual content explains how Gilbert & George discover “the fundamental truths at the heart of our existence: death, hope, life, fear, sex, money, race, religion.” So every thing then. The curators intersperse textual content explaining how the artists “adapt sacred imagery to challenge religious belief systems” or “have always acknowledged mortality.” Their commentary is moot, for the pictures operate much less as means to discover these themes than to perpetuate the idea of Gilbert & George because the art work, or perhaps a model. It’s fairly spectacular how persistently they refer again to themselves because the OG.
They seem in each single piece, whether or not looming giant with Mao-like huge heads in three-quarter profile or making mock-shocked faces to the digital camera or dealing with frontally with arms outstretched in quasi-religious blessing, eyes minimize out and alarmingly emphasised like so many historic votive collectible figurines. There’s greater than a whiff of idolatry in how they consistently seem as gods in their very own icons. This isn’t to say that the pictures are propagandistic: they’re stuffed with cheek, humor, provocation, and irreverence that’s at instances disarmingly charming. The standardized black-lined window format evokes the panels of a cartoon, with contrasting oversaturated colours to match: right here, Gilbert & George are sleeping on a park bench; right here, they’re adventuring by way of the drug-addled streets of Britain. Massive scale, vivid, with simply sufficient reference to massive themes corresponding to intercourse, demise, and faith, they tick all of the packing containers a recent collector would need. It feels as if they’ve made collectible editions of themselves.
Gilbert & George, “Murder” (2011)
The cult of Gilbert & George continues within the present store, the place merchandise has gone to city on all the important thing components that type their model: cheeky irreverence in a picket swear field (“Pay up and f**k off”), duo bookmarks (what do you imply, they don’t each learn the identical guide on the identical time?), police-style tape emblazoned with “Homo riot,” and pins that say “free dick.” Just a little like Jeff Koons, who speaks of the which means in his works like a real Pop Artwork salesman, with a Cheshire grin, it’s important to admire Gilbert & George’s whole dedication to being the artwork: a peculiarly dry and British double act.
Set up view of Gilbert & George: twenty first Century Photos on the Hayward Gallery, London. Heart: “Ages” (2001)
Gilbert & George, “Anti-Fascist Zone” (2014)
Set up view of “Sex Money Race Religion” (2016) in Gilbert & George: twenty first Century Photos on the Hayward Gallery, London
Gilbert & George, “White Bastards” (2004)
Gilbert & George, “Metalepsy” (2008) (© Gilbert & George, courtesy White Dice)
Gilbert & George: twenty first Century Photos continues on the Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre (Belvedere Highway, London, England) by way of January 11, 2026. The exhibition was curated by Rachel Thomas, Suzanna Petot, and Hannah Martin.
