吉伯特與喬治

吉伯特1943年生於意大利多羅邁特斯,就讀於哈萊因藝術學院和慕尼黑藝術學院。喬治1942年生於英國德文郡,就讀達丁頓會堂藝術學院及牛津藝術學校。1967年,兩人在倫敦聖馬田藝術學院相識,並開始一起工作至今。

吉伯特與喬治共同開創並發展了一套他們獨有的視覺語言:「人間諸事萬物都能成為我們的主題及靈感泉源」。他們以自己為主角的作品,首次於1969年以「活雕塑」方式呈現。穿上傳統套裝的吉伯特與喬治,在面部和手部塗上油彩,然後維持雕像式姿勢達數小時之久;而在其最著名的現場表演《在拱門下》中,他倆就站在桌上扮演「唱歌的雕塑」,隨著一張英國同名舊唱片歌唱。除了這些帶有時間延續性的表演外,他倆的作品還有「明信片雕塑」、「雜誌雕塑」,並以「錄像雕塑」開創錄像藝術的先河。1970至74年間,他們製作了30幅大型畫作「炭筆紙本雕塑」,以炭筆繪製並配有文字,面積之大足以覆蓋畫廊的牆壁和天花。1971年,他們創作了一系列油畫作品《畫作(與我們在大自然中)》,並將之稱為「雕塑」;又以攝影為媒介,從1970年代中期至今,利用黑色鑲邊格子放大比例,大量製作巨型掛幅作品。

《精神壓抑》(1980) 可說是他倆作品中最冷清荒涼的圖片之一。陰森畸型的樹木形象,滲透著死亡與腐敗氣息。鮮黃色的背景上是一棵枯樹的剪影,那骷髏似的輪廓,仿似向天空伸出魔爪。原樹位於倫敦芬斯伯利圓形廣場,是二次大戰後日本向英國賠償的餽贈。樹上掛有製作粗劣的牌匾,詳述了它的歷史。但在作品發表後不久,該樹與牌匾就被移走了。

吉伯特與喬治於1968年在倫敦西區一間三明治酒吧舉行首次個展。繼1971年在倫敦白教堂畫廊舉行了首次的畫廊公開展後,他們的展覽和回顧展在世界各地的著名場館均有舉行,包括:荷蘭艾恩德霍芳凡亞培市立博物館巡迴展(1980-1);巴爾的摩美術館及美國巡迴展(1984-5);北京中國美術館及上海美術館(1993);巴黎現代藝術博物館(1997),以及貝倫文化中心(里斯本,2002)等。1986年榮獲倫敦泰特美術館「特納獎」;2005年代表英國出席威尼斯雙年展;2007年在倫敦泰特現代美術館舉辦了重要作品回顧展,展品隨後在慕尼黑藝術館及意大利里弗利當代藝術館展出。

Gilbert and George

Gilbert was born in the Dolomites, Italy in 1943 and studied at Hallein School of Art and Munich Academy of Art. George was born in Devon, England in 1942 and studied at Dartington Hall College of Art and Oxford Art School. They began working together in London shortly after first meeting at St Martin’s School of Art, London in 1967, and have continued to do so ever since.

Gilbert & George invented and have been constantly developing their own visual language: “the content of mankind is our subject and our inspiration”. Using themselves as the primary subject of their art, they first appeared as “Living Sculpture” in 1969. Wearing conventional suits, with their faces and hands painted, they would either adopt statuesque poses which lasted for several hours or, in the case of their most famous live performance Underneath the Arches, they were the “Singing Sculpture” standing on a table singing to a record of the old English music hall song of the same title. In addition to these durational performances, they made “Postcard Sculptures” “Magazine Sculptures” and were early pioneers of video art with their “Sculptures on Video Tape”. Between 1970 and 1974 they executed thirty “Charcoal on Paper Sculptures” — large drawings in charcoal with text which in some instances completely covered the gallery walls and ceilings. In 1971 they made a series of paintings in oil on canvas entitled The Paintings (with Us in the Nature), a body of work which they again referred to as “sculpture”. Photography was to become their primary medium and, from the mid 1970s to the present, they have produced an enormous body of wall-based works using black rimmed grids to enable them to work on a large scale.

Intellectual Depression (1980) is perhaps one of Gilbert & George’s starkest pictures, concerned with imagery of a dark, malformed growth, and orbiting notions of death and decay. A black silhouette of a skeletal leafless tree appears on a rich yellow background, seeming to raise a twisted claw to the sky. The featured tree grew in Finsbury Circus in London and was a gift from the Japanese government as reparation after World War II. A poorly-made plaque on the tree detailed its history, though both tree and plaque were removed shortly after Gilbert & George’s picture was made.

Their first solo exhibition was in 1968 at a sandwich bar in the West End of London, and their first public gallery exhibition was at the Whitechapel Art Gallery, London in 1971. Since then Gilbert & George have had innumerable exhibitions throughout the world and retrospectives at many major museums, including: the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven and tour in 1980-1, Baltimore Museum of Art and US tour in 1984-5, China Art Gallery, Beijing and the Art Museum, Shanghai in 1993, the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1997, and Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon in 2002. They were awarded the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, London in 1986 and represented Britain at the Venice Biennale in 2005. In 2007 Gilbert & George had a major retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, London, which was subsequently toured to Haus der Kunst, Munich and Castello di Rivoli, Italy.