VISIT OF THE GILBERT & GEORGE CENTRE WITH THADDAEUS ROPAC ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR SILVIA DAVOLI

Join us for an exclusive visit to the Gilbert & George centre with Thaddaeus Ropac associate director Silvia Davoli.

Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore, collectively known as Gilbert & George, are an English artist duo who have been collaborating since the late 1960s. They are best known for their large-scale, vividly-coloured photo-based artworks, which explore themes of identity, religion, politics, and sexuality.

Gilbert & George first met while studying sculpture at Saint Martin’s School of Art in London in 1967. They began working together shortly thereafter, and by the early 1970s, had gained a reputation as controversial and provocative performance artists. In their early performances, they often dressed in suits and sang or recited poetry while adopting various personas, such as “living sculptures” or “singing sculptures.”

In the mid-1970s, Gilbert & George began creating the large-scale photo-based works for which they are best known. These works are made up of a grid of individual panels, each of which features a photographic image that has been manipulated and layered with text, patterns, and other graphic elements. The resulting compositions are bold, colourful, and often confrontational, exploring taboo subjects such as sexuality, religion, and politics with a mix of humour and outrage.

Throughout their long career, Gilbert & George have remained committed to their collaborative process, referring to themselves as “living sculptures” and “two people, one artist.” They have been the subject of numerous exhibitions and retrospectives at major museums and galleries around the world, and their works are held in the collections of many prominent institutions.

Photo by Prudence Cuming / Courtesy The Gilbert & George Centre