Gilbert and George

GILBERT & GEORGE; GILBERT PROESCH (Italy, 1943) and GEORGE PASSMORE (UK, 1942).
"Thief", 2011, "London Pictures" series.
4 pieces mounted on a wooden panel with rails forming part of the set.
Unique piece.
Rear with labels with title, date, position and care instructions.
Panel #4 is signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Attached certificate issued by Jean Bernier & Marina Eliades stating that the piece was exhibited at the Bernier/Eliades Gallery in Athens in 2012.
Measurements: 76 x 73.5 cm (each panel); 151 x 127 cm (total).

Thief, Sex, Bomb, Banks, Stabbed... these are the key words that the brilliant duo Gilbert and George highlight in blood red in the different series that are part of "London Pictures", grouping them by themes. Striking colors for tabloid expressions form a repetitive design in whose margins appear the effigies of both artists as clueless testimonials. They form a mural of fragmentary news, a mosaic of scandals and sorrows of our society. The series was created by sorting and classifying by subject matter nearly 4,000 newspaper headline posters, stolen by the artists over several years. Michael Bracewell writes about "London Pictures": "Based directly on the everyday life of a big city, London Pinctures allow contemporary society to tell its own story in its own language. In the urban landscape of this moral audit, Gilbert & George seem to pass as ghosts and seers, alternately watchful and distracted, as if their spirits haunt the very streets and buildings these pictures depict. They seem to comprise a great visual novel, revealing without judgment the relentless relay of urban drama, in all its gradations of hope and suffering."

Gilbert and George is a British artist couple composed by Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore, who have developed their work within conceptual art, performance and body art, being famous mainly for acting as "living sculptures". They met as students at St. Martin's School of Art in London, and since 1968 they have been living together and working professionally as an artistic duo. One of their first works was The Singing Sculpture (1969), in which the pair of artists danced and sang Underneath the Arches, a musical hit from the 1930s. Since then they have forged a solid reputation as living sculptures, turning themselves into works of art, exhibited for various lengths of time for public viewing. They usually appear impeccably dressed in suits and ties, adopting various postures in which they remain immobile, although sometimes they also move or read some text, and sometimes appear in assemblies or installations of various kinds. In addition to their "sculptural" facet, Gilbert and George also produce pictorial works, collages and photomontages, where they often represent themselves, along with various elements of their immediate environment, with references to urban culture and a strong vindictive component, where they address issues such as sex, race, death and AIDS, religion or politics, often criticizing the British government and the established power. In this sense, their most prolific and ambitious series has been Jack Freak Pictures, where the red, white and blue colors of the British flag have a constant presence. Gilbert and George have exhibited in some of the best museums and galleries in the world, such as the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (1980), the Hayward Gallery in London (1987), the Tate Modern (2007), etc. They have participated several times in the Documenta in Kassel (5, 6 and 7), and in 2005 they represented their country at the Venice Biennale. In 1986 they were winners of the Turner Prize.