GILBERT PROESCH B. Italy, September 11, 1943
GEORGE PASSMORE B. England, January 8, 1942
Come on then. What was your first Gilbert and George experience like? I mean when you were there, in a gallery, and, wham bam, you saw it, one of those bright stained glass photo-montages. Wasn't it like art hitting you with the brightest sledgehammer? Or, for me, like losing my virginity: an experience that change my life forever.
Come to think of it: it wasn't like losing my virginity at all. That was over way too quickly, was as overrated as Brokeback Mountain, and left me wishing I had said: "Can we do it tomorrow? It hurts". The first time with Gilbert and George inspired none of these things. So I guess what I'm really trying to say, albeit clumsily, is that the experience was as life changing as doing it the first time.
What of Gilbert and George? Gilbert is the Italian geezer with the Italian accent. He wears a suit. George is the English geezer with the non-Italian accent. He has quite a posh English accent and wears a matching suit.
They met in 1967 while studying sculpture at St Martins School of Art in London. To begin with they were performance artists. They quickly became known for their identical business suits and going around everywhere together in their identical suits. But it was the large-scale photo collages which caught the public eye. From the 1990s to the present their fame grew and grew, and prices to match (these days their originals sell for £200,000 upwards, though if you've got the space as well as the cash I would say they are worth every penny. If you haven't then a signed poster is no bad substitute, and the two seem to sign everything that is passed in front of them).
Why was the media so attracted to them? For me, it was because the photo-montages contained subject matter which caused offence in the heartlands of conservative Britain. If the heartlands were offended then the rest of us were naturally drawn. Oldest trick in the art book, that. Sprinkle the 'offence' with sexual content and the British media couldn't ignore it.
But I think it was the power of the images that the heartlands objected to most. Yeah, the vivid colours and the hugeness of the pieces hit you hard but Gilbert and George did it all so damned beautifully that the work transcended the subject matter. They depicted sexual acts, urine, faeces, semen, named each work with a strong or bold title, but by framing it all in those stained-glass panels they made us feel like some kind of worshippers in the church of bigness. Bigness with an inner East London bent (and they have lived in Spitalfields for many years).
And bigness that screams: 'THIS IS ART'.
But perhaps my link with virginity and sex isn't that wide of the mark. For like sex Gilbert and George get better with age, and their recent work is living proof of that.
© Paul Page
February 2006
