GILBERT & GEORGE

THIRTEEN HOOLIGAN PICTURES 2004

June 20 – September 18, 2004

Gilbert & George (George: England, 1942 – Gilbert: Dolomites, 1943) are certainly one of the major actors on the international art scene. Gilbert studied at the Munich Academy in Germany and George at the Art School in Oxford. They met at the St. Martin’s School of Art in 1967.

For more than 35 years Gilbert & George have been an inseparable team, a unit, an idea. From the onset, they themselves became a work of art, a “Living Sculpture” that caught people’s imagination first in the incarnation of the “Singing Sculpture”.

Their very first art works involved the use of objects which were very soon abandoned in favor only of themselves who became subject, object and intent. Consequently, artists and artwork were one and the same. Their impersonal expressions, extreme self control and elegant, rather old fashioned, three-buttoned suit was from then onwards to become their trademark in many different later versions. In parallel to their “Living Sculptures”, which launched them onto the international art scene, they also did drawings, paintings, performances and photographs under the generic term of “Sculpture”.

In the beginning of the 70’s they made their first assemblages of Photo - Pieces which evolved to their well known visual signature of huge brightly colored, photobased collage-pictures on a black grid.

Gilbert & George’s work through their career has moved from issues of race, hate, love, sex, violence, desperation, nakedness and so many obsessions besides. In their new show, under the title “Thirteen Hooligan Pictures 2004”, the artists explore the issue of hooliganism and further on the life and psyche of a person which acts in extreme ways in order to express himself.

Their art which is almost always deliberately large scale, is impressive and cinematic. They treat colors, shapes, ideas as tools and constructs, and the insistency and depth of the colors they use lodge in the memory. All colors, shapes and patterns are held “in place” by a constant grid which of course divides the image into regular sections, acts as support and segment frames, and also throws the brightly colored images which often become symbols, almost in relief.

Using high technology for the first time, and being greatly inspired by the complexity of contemporary life and recent acts of violence, in these new photo-pieces, Gilbert & George address a fundamental issue (that of Hooliganism) which is central to their method of working and driving desire.

With their art they fight conformism and passive thinking. That is evident from the style of their presentation, using shock tactics to challenge it. However, the shock is usually accompanied by a mischievous humor.

Believing that “Art is for all” they want to establish an honest and unconditional relationship with their spectators. Their presence in most of their pictures, symbolizes and at the same time emphasizes a yearning for an interactive relationship with other people. Their primary intention is to start up an intimate but at the same time provocative interaction with the public, in which the viewer is confronted with their message and inevitably reacts to it in some way. Through their work they invite people to look into themselves and have a more critical approach of life.

Gilbert & George have been selected to represent Britain at the 51st Venice Biennale, 2005. Tate Modern will host their retrospective in 2007.