吉尔伯特与乔治

吉尔伯特1943年生于意大利多罗迈特斯,就读于哈莱因艺术学院和慕尼黑艺术学院。乔治1942年生于英国德文郡,就读达丁顿会堂艺术学院及牛津艺术学校。1967年,两人在伦敦圣马田艺术学院相识,并开始一起工作至今。

吉尔伯特与乔治共同开创并发展了一套他们独有的视觉语言:「人间诸事万物都能成为我们的主题及灵感泉源」。他们以自己为主角的作品,首次于1969年以「活雕塑」方式呈现。穿上传统套装的吉尔伯特与乔治,在面部和手部涂上油彩,然后维持雕像式姿势达数小时之久;而在其最著名的现场表演《在拱门下》中,他俩就站在桌上扮演「唱歌的雕塑」,随着一张英国同名旧唱片歌唱。除了这些带有时间延续性的表演外,他俩的作品还有「明信片雕塑」、「杂志雕塑」,并以「录像雕塑」开创录像艺术的先河。1970至74年间,他们制作了30幅大型画作「炭笔纸本雕塑」,以炭笔绘制并配有文字,面积之大足以覆盖画廊的墙壁和天花。1971年,他们创作了一系列油画作品《画作(与我们在大自然中)》,并将之称为「雕塑」;又以摄影为媒介,从1970年代中期至今,利用黑色镶边格子放大比例,大量制作巨型挂幅作品。

《精神压抑》(1980) 可说是他俩作品中最冷清荒凉的图片之一。阴森畸型的树木形象,渗透着死亡与腐败气息。鲜黄色的背景上是一棵枯树的剪影,那骷髅似的轮廓,仿似向天空伸出魔爪。原树位于伦敦芬斯伯利圆形广场,是二次大战后日本向英国赔偿的馈赠。树上挂有制作粗劣的牌匾,详述了它的历史。但在作品发表后不久,该树与牌匾就被移走了。

吉尔伯特与乔治于1968年在伦敦西区一间三明治酒吧举行首次个展。继1971年在伦敦白教堂画廊举行了首次的画廊公开展后,他们的展览和回顾展在世界各地的著名场馆均有举行,包括:荷兰艾恩德霍芳凡亚培市立博物馆巡回展(1980-1);巴尔的摩美术馆及美国巡回展(1984-5);北京中国美术馆及上海美术馆(1993);巴黎现代艺术博物馆(1997),以及贝伦文化中心(里斯本,2002)等。1986年荣获伦敦泰特美术馆「特纳奖」;2005年代表英国出席威尼斯双年展;2007年在伦敦泰特现代美术馆举办了重要作品回顾展,展品随后在慕尼黑艺术馆及意大利里弗利当代艺术馆展出。

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.