Gilbert & George, GOD GUARD THEE, 2008, 317 X 453 cm, © Gilbert & George. |
Gilbert and George, (the Union) Jack, and the Semiotics of 'Art for All' |
Gilbert & George, UNITED KINGDOM, 2008, 226 x 254, cm, © Gilbert & George.
Gilbert & George, ABODE, 2008, 226 x 254 cm, © Gilbert & George.
Gilbert & George, STUFF RELIGION, 2008, 317 x 302 cm, © Gilbert & George.
Gilbert & George, CANCAN, 2008.
Gilbert & George, JESUS SUITS, 2008, 226 x 190 cm, © Gilbert & George. |
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Centre for Fine Arts The Jack Freak Pictures feature distinctive pictorial elements and of course the artists themselves, seen in various guises and with contorted bodies, intermingled with geometric and figurative patterns. The most dominant pictorial element is the Union Jack, itself both an internationally familiar, geometric pattern, and a politically charged symbol, the significance of which spans the cultural spectrum from contemporary fashion to aggressive national pride. The Centre for Fine Arts presents a new exhibition by the art world’s most enduring duo Gilbert & George. The Jack Freak Pictures comprise the largest group of pictures created to date by Gilbert & George, 153 in total, and are a consolidation of the themes to be found in their art over the last 40 years: urban life, race, sexuality, nationalism, religion, death, hope, life, fear. The clarity of vision and powerful emotion in the visual language of Gilbert & George remains stronger than ever in this extraordinary group of pictures, about 85 of which are shown at the Centre for Fine Arts in autumn 2010. Gilbert & George have exhibited at the Centre of Fine Arts twice before: in 1973 in the exhibition From Henry Moore to Gilbert & George, which was presented under the framework of Europalia Great-Britain; and again in 1986, with their important survey exhibition, Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures 1971-1985. This exhibition of the Jack Freak Pictures is presented in association with the British Council, and after the showing at the Centre for Fine Arts, will tour to Hamburg (Deichtorhallen), Linz (Lentos Kunstmuseum) and Gdansk (Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art). Their achievement and ambitions as artists, encompassed by their argument of "Art for All", have consisted of describing the intense and universal experience of living in the modern world. Presenting images taken from reality and even from themselves as figures, they manage to create an art that speaks of daily life and intellectual artistic aspects. Until 1974 they worked exclusively in black and white; that year they introduced graffiti and the colour red; and in the 1980s they added yellow, green and blue. They only started to spatter colour on all their images in 1982. Since 2003 they have increased their use of computers to digitally alter and improve their art, enormous polyptychs that seem to surround viewers and produce great aesthetic impact. In this group of pictures, with its evocation of atmospheres and emotions, pictorial elements are relatively few and include medals, amulets, trees, foliage, city maps of East London, bricks, the Union Jack, the street and the artists themselves. They attribute an almost magical meaning to nature and use it like an emblem. Here the human body and face (especially eyes and fingers) are mutations of themselves, taking the form of inhuman presences such as prophets, totems and monsters (Hecatomb, Homey, Brits, etc.). The artists appear dressed in multi-coloured, patterned clothes such as the kind worn by actors and comedians in variety reviews (Metalepsy, Street Party, Jesus Suits, etc.), as "flag men" literally composed with the Union Jack (Metaljack, Bleeding Medals, Frigidarium, etc.) and as dancers, looking like robots or marionettes, lost in a kind of trance and absorbed by the pictorial support, to end up transformed into living sculptures (Harvest Dance, Cancan, Stuff Religion, etc.). From a formal perspective, their huge pictures take on the same aspect as large stained-glass windows, or enormous kaleidoscopes dominated by geometric motifs and pure, flat and intense colours. These fragmented structures make many points of view possible without letting their art turn into mere visual anecdotes, and the frontality of the compositions beckon to viewers in a simple way that reinforces their ceremonial and ornamental qualities at the same time. All this supports a purpose they explain as wanting to enter into the person, wanting to be successful and wanting to be right; they try to place themselves within the soul of the viewer so that he/she remembers the image forever. All the exhibited pictures were created in 2008 using mixed media. In the margins of the exhibition. As a complement to the exhibition, visitors can see the film The Secret Files of Gilbert & George. This interview, filmed in 2000 by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist for an exhibition at the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, concentrates on the hysteria of the archive and the collection. Through this document, which does not fit into any distinct category (documentary, oeuvre, fiction) we discover Gilbert & George’s intimate life, the interior of their London house, a veritable museum of obsessions. One of the highlights of this exhibition will be the new edition of BOZAR by NIGHT on 10 November 2010. During this event, Gilbert and George’s Jack Freak Pictures exhibition and Wim Delvoye’s Knockin’ on heaven’s door exhibition, will remain open to the public between 8 p.m. and midnight. Inside these, audiovisual and performing arts students will give short performances inspired by the works on show. Alongside these, the public will be able to enjoy a screening of Julian Cole’s movie With Gilbert & George (2008), an intimate and moving portrait that reveals the individuals behind the living sculptures. This film will be screened in collaboration with Jeunesse et Arts Plastiques (JAP). From 10 pm until the wee hours of the morning.
Gilbert & George, UNION DANCE, 2008, 226 x 190 cm, © Gilbert & George.
Gilbert & George, ON THE WALL, 2008, 226 x 190 cm, © Gilbert & George. |
Gilbert & George, OF THE CLOTH, 2008, 127 x 151 cm, © Gilbert & George. |
Gilbert and George, WINTER FLOWERS, 1982, © Gilbert & George, 94-3/4 x 98-1/2", The Carol and Arthur Goldberg Collection. |
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Gilbert and George, a Career-Long Partnership of Life and Art |
Gilbert and George, HOPE, DEATH HOPE LIFE FEAR, 1984, A quadripartite picture, © Gilbert & George, 95-1/4 x 119-1/4", Tate, London, Purchased 1990.
Gilbert and George, FEAR, DEATH HOPE LIFE FEAR, 1984, A quadripartite picture, © Gilbert & George, 95-1/4 x 119-1/4", Tate, London, Purchased 1990.
Gilbert and George, HETERODOXY, 2005, © Gilbert & George, 125-1/4 x 178-1/3", Marc and Livia Strauss Family Collection.
Gilbert & George, APOSTASIA, 2004 (detail), The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, © Gilbert & George.
Gilbert & George, THE RED SCULPTURE, 1975, © Gilbert & George.
Gilbert & George in their London home, 1987, Photo: Derry Moore.
Gilbert and George, DEATH, DEATH HOPE LIFE FEAR, 1984, A quadripartite picture, © Gilbert & George, 95-1/4 x 119-1/4", Tate, London, Purchased 1990. |
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Brooklyn Museum Gilbert Prousch (often misspelled as Proesch) (born in San Martino, Italy, September 11, 1943) and George Passmore (born in Devon, England January 8, 1942), better known as Gilbert & George have worked almost exclusively as a pair throughout their careers. Gilbert & George is comprised of more than ninety pictures produced since 1970, among them more than a dozen that will be seen only in the Brooklyn presentation. The exhibition was organized by Tate Modern, London, with the support and collaboration of the artists, who consider this the definitive presentation of their art. It traces their stylistic and emotional evolution through pictures and works in other media, from Charcoal on Paper Sculptures from the early 1970s to postcard pieces, to ephemera, dating to the 1960s. Gilbert studied art at the Wolkenstein School of Art and Hallein School of Art in Austria and the Akademie der Kunst, Munich, before moving to England. George was born in Plymouth in the United Kingdom, and first studied art at the Dartington Hall College of Art and the Oxford School of Art, then part of the Oxford College of Technology, which eventually became Oxford Brookes University. The two first met on September 25, 1967 while studying sculpture at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, one of six colleges in the University of the Arts, London. The two claim they came together because George was the only person who could understand Gilbert's rather poorly spoken English. In a 2002 interview with The Daily Telegraph they said of their meeting: "it was love at first sight." (Telegraph, 05.28.02). It is widely assumed that Gilbert & George are lovers, and although they dismiss questions about their sex lives, George, in the documentary Imagine, aired on 08.05.07 in the UK, referred to Gilbert and himself as "two poofs". They were initially known as performance artists. While still students they made The Singing Sculpture (1970), for which they covered themselves in gold metallic paint, stood on a table, and mimed to a recording of Flanagan and Allen's song Underneath the Arches, sometimes for hours at a time. The suits they wore for these performances became a sort of uniform for them, and they rarely appear in public unless wearing them. It is also virtually unheard of for one of the pair to be seen without the other. They refuse to disassociate their performances from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art. The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures". In a 2001 interview with Tom O'Toole on Mid-West Radio, a local radio station in the west of Ireland, the pair stated that the living sculptures idea came to them from a visit to Knock Shrine, Co. Mayo Ireland where it is believed that an apparition of the Blessed Virgin, saints and angels occurred in 1879. It was reported on the Weekly Arts programme on Mid-West Radio on 14 February 2007 that Gilbert and George have recently accepted a commission for a piece of installation art which is to be located at the apparition site. The pair are perhaps best known for their large scale photo-montages, such as Cosmological Pictures (1993), frequently tinted in extremely bright colours, backlit, and overlaid with black grids so as to resemble stained glass windows. Gilbert & George themselves often feature in these works, along with flowers and youths, their friends, and echoes of Christian symbolism. The early works in this style were in black and white, with red and yellow touches in later series. Later these works moved to use a range of bold colours. Their 2005 work, Sonofagod, has returned to a more sombre and darker palette. Some series of their pictures have attracted media attention through including potentially shocking imagery, including nudity, depictions of sexual acts, and bodily fluids, such as faeces, urine and semen. The titling of their series, such as Naked Shit Pictures (1995), has also contributed to media attention. In 1986 Gilbert and George attracted criticism for a series of works seemingly glamorizing 'rough types' of London's East End such as skinheads, while a picture of an Asian man bore the derogatory title "Paki". For many years they have been residents of Fournier Street, Spitalfields, East London. In 2000 they moved galleries to be represented by White Cube. In May 2007, Gilbert and George were the subject of a BBC Imagine documentary presented by Alan Yentob. At the end of the programme a work entitled Planed was made available as a free file download from the BBC and Guardian websites for 48 hours. People who downloaded the files could then print off and assemble the piece, and own an original Gilbert and George work for free. Since 1974 Gilbert and George have used their personal complex grid system to create their pictures, which are now developed with the use of sophisticated digital editing techniques. In the early 1980s they began to introduce bold colors into their pictures, with one or more pictures in each group that were created on a monumental scale. All pictures in a group share common motifs and conceptual and formal elements. The artists' work, which is sometimes seen as controversial and provocative, considers the entire cosmology of human experience and explores such themes as faith and religion, sexuality, race and identity, urban life, terrorism, superstition, AIDs-related loss, aging, and death. The pictures in the exhibition have been loaned from public and private collections in North America and Europe. Included in the exhibition will be selections from the Ginkgo Pictures series which were part of the exhibition that represented the United Kingdom at the 2005 Venice Biennale; examples from the 1974 Cherry Blossom pictures: Finding God, 1982, a huge complex composition featuring images of the artists, several young men, and a cross; and more recent pictures, among them two of The Six Bomb Pictures, created for the inaugural presentation of the exhibition at Tate Modern, these pictures are intended by the artists to be seen as modern townscapes reflecting the daily exposure in urban life to bomb threats and terror raids. Gilbert was born in San Martino, Italy, in 1943. He studied at the Wolkenstein School of Art, the Hallenstein School of Art, and the Munich Academy of Art. George was born in Devon, England, in 1942 and studied at the Dartington Adult Education Centre and the Dartington Hall College of Art, as well as at the Oxford School of Art. Both attended St. Martin's School of Art in London. For more than forty years they have lived and worked in East London in a house on Fournier Street that they have said is, in many ways, a part of their art. The exhibition is organized by Tate Modern, London and was curated by Jan Debbaut, Independent Curator, and Ben Borthwick, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern. The Brooklyn presentation is coordinated at Tate Modern by Rachel Kent, Exhibitions Tour Manager and for the Brooklyn Museum by Judy Kim, Curator of Exhibitions. Gilbert & George: Complete Pictures, a comprehensive, illustrated two-volume catalogue featuring 1,479 plates with an in-depth analysis of the Gilbert & George oeuvre by the art historian Rudi Fuchs, accompanies the exhibition. In addition, there is a 200-page exhibition catalogue produced by Tate Publishing that features essays by Jan Debbaut, curator; Ben Borthwick, Assistant Curator at Tate Modern; Michael Bracewell, novelist and cultural commentator; and Marco Livingstone, art historian. Gilbert & George is organized by Tate Modern in association with the Brooklyn Museum. |
Gilbert and George, INSIDE, 1983, © Gilbert & George, 118-3/4 x 118-1/2", Janet de Botton, London. |
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