Gilbert & George review – a dirty-mouthed atheist onslaught

[rug]

This new exhibition of relentless photomontages restates the double act's desire to offend on a colossal scale



'Mirroring the tensions and contradictions of Britain in the era of Ukip' … Gassy, 2013. Photograph: Gilbert & George/courtesy White Cube

Wednesday 16 July 2014 12.42 EDT
Jonathan Jones
theguardian.com

The world of art is overwhelmingly liberal and forward looking. Unless you start following the money into Charles Saatchi's bank account, the mood, content and operating assumptions of contemporary art are strikingly leftwing, from Bob and Roberta Smith's cute posters to Jeremy Deller's people's art. The consensus is so progressive it does not need saying.

Gilbert & George have never signed up to that consensus. I am not saying they are rightwing. I am definitely not saying they are "racist". But throughout their long careers, from a nostalgia for Edwardian music-hall songs to a more unsettling affinity for skinheads, they have delighted in provoking … us, dear Guardian reader.

Their new exhibition of grand, relentless photomontages restates their defiant desire to offend on a colossal scale. I could almost hear them at my shoulder asking: "Are you annoyed yet?"

Then suddenly they were at my shoulder, as I wrote down choice quotes from Scapegoating Pictures, the scabrous triptych of slogan-spattered pictures that climaxes this exhibition. When I confessed I was wondering which ones I could quote in a newspaper they insisted it's all quotable: "We have a free press." So here goes: "Fuck the Vicar." "Get Frotting." "Be candid with christians." "Jerk off a judge." "Crucify a curator." "Molest a mullah."

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jul/16/gilbert-and-george-scapegoating-pictures-white-cube

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_%26_George

[mr blur]

1. And...?

[rug]

2. And . . . ?

Do you have a point?

[cbayer]

3. I would like to see more, actually.

The author's take on what they are trying to do here is interesting, but I suspect that this is wide open for individual interpretation.

[cbayer]

4. Aha, I found a link with many more images.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2014/jul/16/gilbert-george-scapegoating-white-cube-in-pictures

[intaglio]

5. Gilbert and George being Gilbert and George

There's nothing strange about that.

From the White Cube press release:

For nearly five decades the art of Gilbert & George has created a visceral and epic depiction of modern urban existence. At its centre are always the artists themselves, who have dedicated their adult lives to their calling as ‘Living Sculptures’ – witness participants within the moral and vividly atmospheric world of their vision, as it is revealed in their art.

The ‘SCAPEGOATING PICTURES’ unflinchingly describe the volatile, tense, accelerated and mysterious reality of our increasingly technological, multi-faith and multi-cultural world. It is a world in which paranoia, fundamentalism, surveillance, religion, accusation and victimhood become moral shades of the city’s temper. Gilbert & George take their place in these ‘SCAPEGOATING PICTURES’ as shattered and spirit-like forms – at times masked, at times as grotesquely capering skeletons, at times dead-eyed and impassive. These ‘SCAPEGOATING PICTURES’ consolidate and advance the art of Gilbert & George as a view of modern humanity that is at once libertarian and free-thinking, opposed to bigotry of all forms and dedicated to secular realism.

Note that G&G are ecumenical in their insults

[rug]

6. I never heard of them before.

Thanks for the background.

[intaglio]

7. They have been rather overshadowed by Hurst and Emin

and, honestly, their work is an acquired taste