Gilbert and George

More about the book

The candid, revealing inside story of one of the great and most original art acts of our the enigmatic living sculptures based in Spitalfields in Londons East End.Gilbert and George are unquestionably among the most important and original artists of our time. Critics have come to recognise the artists vision and to regard some of their works as among the major pictures of the century.Gilbert (from the Italian Dolomites) and George (from Totnes) met at St Martins School of Art in the late 1960s and formed an immediate friendship. This is an engagingly informal portrait in which they reminisce about their family upbringing, their friendship, life in Spitalfields, and their relish of the mixed cultures of the East End. With their distinctive trademark single-breasted, three-button suits and their famously studied but courteous composure, Gilbert and George set out as artists without a gallery. From living, and singing, sculptures, they developed a line in controversial subject matter that extends from the Dirty Words Pictures to The Naked Shit and The Fundamental pictures. As exponents of photo-based art, they are, as writer David Sylvester has remarked, perhaps second only to Andy Warhol.