Gilbert and George

   GILBERT AND GEORGE

           

Gilbert and George are an artist couple, who are known for their distinctive and highly formal appearance and manner and also for their brightly coloured graphic-style photo-based artworks. The pair have a huge love for Prince Charles they said  "We're also fond of the Prince of Wales: he's a gentleman."  I strongly feel they were inspired by the Prince's style and his suits. They were listed as among the fifty best-dressed over 50s by the Guardian in March 2013. The suits they wore became a sort of uniform for them. They rarely appear in public without wearing them. It is also unusual for one of the pair to be seen without the other. The pair regard themselves as "living sculptures". 

Whilst still students, Gilbert & George made The Singing Sculpture, which was first performed at Nigel Greenwood Gallery in 1970. For this performance they covered their heads and hands in multi-coloured metallic powders, stood on a table, and sang along and moved to a recording of Flanagan and Allen's song "Underneath the Arches", sometimes for a day at a time. This captivated their audience and they claim it had and mesmeric effect on them sort if hypnotising them.

Thank Thatcher For Art Boom, Say Gilbert & George

 "Left equals good. Art equals Left. Pop stars and artists are meant to be so original. So how come everyone has the same opinion? ... We admire Margaret Thatcher greatly. She did a lot for art. Socialism wants everyone to be equal. We want to be different." - 

Gilbert & George are an oddity in the artistic world because of their openly conservative political views and their praise for Margaret Thatcher George claims never to have been anti-establishment. They love Margaret Thatcher. as they say it was her who helped to get living artists recognised and make them money - "Because she deregulated everything, so they could become rich, the artists, for the first time. Before that they had to be art-school teachers mostly."

The couple are best known for their large scale works,  best know as 'The Pictures' which stared in black and white but as time went on hand painted bursts of bold reds and yellow were brought into them. They proceeded to use a range of bolder colours, sometimes backlit, and overlaid with black grids. Their work has addressed a wide variety of subject matter including religion and patriotism. 

Although working in a variety of media, Gilbert and George referred to all their work as sculpture. Between 1970 and 1974 they also made drawings (referred to as Charcoal on Paper Sculptures) and paintings to give a more tangible form to their identity as ‘living sculptures'.  In 1971 they made their first ‘photo-pieces', which remain their dominant form of expression. The emphasis of their work has moved away from their own experiences of life and concentrated on the inner-city reality that confronted them on the street and on the structures and feelings that inform life such as religion, class, royalty, sex, hope, nationality, death, identity, politics and fear. Their desire to make an ‘Art for Life's Sake' and an ‘Art for All' underlines their belief that art can still positively break down barriers.

The release of this print by Gilbert & George coincided with the opening of their series of work, JACK FREAK PICTURES. Ban Religion reflects the artist's stance on religion, emblazing the contentious message unashamedly, as characteristically their art so often does. 

Their attitudes to religion are very negative. As a homosexual couple they look down on religious view as once discussed they were disgusted in the fact once two boys were hanged in Iran for having sex. They were very humane, they kept them until they were 16 before they hanged them. It was attended by huge crowds. George also said in an interview with The Telegraph: "The Pope should be dragged to the Court of Human Rights and dealt with like Milosevic. He says that homosexual people are intrinsically disordered. He has caused death by refusing to allow the use of condoms."

The pairs views on religion are portrayed in the above peice. With several images of the crucifixtion Gilbert and George are almost advertising the death of Jesus and maybe this is how they are trying to say that they would like to 'BAN RELIGION'. The colours used for this peice are also significant, red and yellow  are colours associated with fire and hell. They could be trying to say that when Jesus was crucified he went to hell or they think he should of has he didnt agree with their views of homosexuality. The facial expressions of Gilbert and George in this peice are also symbolic as they are clearly not happy, they are very serious about this matter. 
In Gilbert and Georges brighter pieces their imagery also reminds me of Andy Warhol. The combination of the burst of colour with black are very similar.