Gilbert and George

Gilbert and George met in 1967 when they were both students at St. Martin’s School of Art in London. Both opposed the concept of the art object as consumer merchandise and sought an alternative to the established art market system.

On leaving art school they declared themselves to be ‘living sculpture’ the decision derived from a need to devote their lives to art. Since they had only themselves, once out of school they had no studio or money to buy materials, they became their own sculpture as an economic and incorrupt means of expressing their art ideas.

The art form devised by Gilbert & George was both original and exceedingly radical for it’s time and although they did not set out to create art that would shock their public, they were aware of the importance to them of expressing extreme states of consciousness.  They made a conscious decision to address in their art all of the concerns that envelope our lives, even especially those concerns that most people deem “private”. In this respect, they often select subject matter that in previous times would have been considered inappropriate or even indecent for fine art. Gilbert & George’s subjects may be shocking only by virtue of the unfamiliarity as art content. They have said “We want to un-shock people and bringing these subjects into the open, allowing them to live and breathe should un-shock’.

Gilbert & George’s work depicts the world that they see. The images used, often “discovered” and captured in the course of their purposeful wanderings around London, derive very much from personal experience. They live and work in London and draw their resource material from what is familiar and proximate. One of the most consistent themes of Gilbert & George’s work is sex. For them, sex is a subject of powerful centrality. They see sex as the single most driving force in life, whether it is the sex of flowers, animals or humans. They choose to confront boldly in their work the subject that they believe most absorbs most people most of the time and yet contradictorily is least addressed openly.

Since 1969 Gilbert & George have incorporated photographic images in their work. They had never been interested in the single, isolated image feeling that its scale was too precious and invited a connoisseur’s response. To achieve scale impact they decided to group clusters of images. Their first wall ‘photo-piece’ was made in 1971 for an exhibition at Art & Project in Amsterdam.

Gilbert & George say that they are not photographers and their work is not photography. They use images of their own making exclusively. With the exception of the early postcard sculptures there are no appropriated images in their art. It is true that they call these works ‘photo-pieces’, but the photographs are only the tools and raw materials with which the artwork is forged. Gilbert & George think and see and live in three dimensions.