Gilbert & George (F A GENERAL)
Category: Books,Humor & Entertainment,Pop Culture
Gilbert & George (F A GENERAL) Details
For the first time Gilbert & George open up and talk at length to the public. In this extraordinarily revealing book, two of the world's most controversial contemporary artists, who have dubbed themselves 'living sculptures', explain and defend their views and actions.
Reviews
About 100 pages into this book I found I was overcome with admiration for the artists Gilbert and George. These wonderful, illustrated interviews, explore their lives, their artistic strategy and philosophy, their response to professional fame, and their impact on acceptable and transgressive societal images since 1970.The influence of minimalism during their academic training must have influenced their strategy to be a human sculpture and to declare that they remain a living sculpture throughout their lives. This follows a minimalist rationale since there is no material in the sculpture except living humans living human lives. What can be more minimal? This concept also fuses the dichotomy between art and life. Does art reflect life or life reflects art or in the case of Gilbert and George, does life become art? Their art does more than reflect on life, since their lives are the art. They counter the cognitive dissonance that this may create through their conservative dress, dead pan expressions and words, and gentle bearing. Yet the conservative matching suits, the matching stiff posture, the careful gentle delivery of responses further signal that they are not ordinary, that indeed they have chosen to make their life their art.Their art is based on extreme transgression, thus they are aided by their conservative appearance and gentle personality. They transgress on the meaning of a piece of art for how can the artists be the art? Yet for many years they have accomplished this, first through their singing sculptures but then through their daily interactions with the world around them. The second transgression is the transgression around acceptability of subject matter. Thus male nudity, excrement, and the penis are part of their broad ranging subject matter. The interviews are very telling in that Gilbert and George express how vulnerable we are as humans with these images of themselves nude. Their work is a precursor for Jeff Koons' images of sexual intercourse with his Italian porno-star wife. Koons took the concept one step further with actual intercourse as the subject of his art. The third level of transgression taken by Gilbert and George is around gay sensibility, visibility of the male couple clearly defined to the world as both an artistic partnership but also a committed male domestic partnership. Thus Gilbert and George transgress upon the meaning of art and the appropriate medium for artistic expression; against sensibilities around the human body and bodily functions; and finally against societal conceptions of homosexuality and the male couple. At one time, Gilbert and George were the most visible committed domestic male couple in the media. I have tremendous admiration for their artistic and societal courage.This book of interviews is broad ranging from their early years as art students, their response to the AIDS epidemic, their response to the changing demographics of the Western world, the changes that technology has brought to their careers, and their continued growing reputation for freedom through transgression. There is a wonderful tale where they exhibit in China and on the first night there is a reception with the political elite and then on the second night a reception with the artistic dissidents. A toast is held and an artist states "To Gilbert and George, for we are bad men too!" This little story is so telling in revealing the philosophy of these guys, that transgression pushes the boundaries of individual and societal freedom. I strongly recommend this book by French curator and writer Francois Jonquet. It is full of illustrations, witty observations, and insight into these outstanding artists.
