Why did anyone ever care & why do some still care about the art of Gilbert & George?
 

Until tomorrow, the BBC and Guardian websites are featuring an "exclusive download" of a new work entitled "Planed" by Gilbert & George.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/imagine/article/g_g_planed.shtml

From what I know, these two have put out the same picture for over a generation. Namely, cut-outs of themselves set against a faux-stained glass backdrop. Who gives a shit?

http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/gandg.htm doc here

Why does everything suck?:fuckyou:

When they first started in the late 60's early 70's, they used a variety of media from performance to video.
Since then, their work has consisted predominantly of photo pieces.

G&G have always been both the subject and the object of their art.
Their work is provocative and often deals with fundamental themes, national stereotypes, taboos, sexuality, bodily functions/fluids, etc.

I don't think their work is rubbish, but that's my opinion.

Haha, they were giving away some work for free.

I wonder why?

Hmm... "We're sorry. The content you requested is available for UK users only."

ah hah..... Yeah, I thought this was really interesting, as I was watching the programme this came about from - and i would have downloaded it but that piece really does nothing for me. However I really do like some of their work quite a bit but really, that doesnt look anything other than a shitty photoshop - which it is.. but I do like the idea of it being a different way to consume and access visual art. It's a question though of the cheapening our new generation though.... especially with computers and shit anyone can do anything and distribute it but because it's so vast there's such an overload and it's harder and harder to defeniciate from shit to something that actually has value... So in effect the human race care less and less and just want to get blown.

I espoused a very similar statement with regards Andy Warhol on Saturday night. Have you noticed that rarely will someone talk about their emotional attachment to a G&G or a Warhol, but will endlessly circumvent their entrepreneurial nous? Also, both Warhol and G&G have a strong Catholic element to their work - Warhol's screen tests as confessional.

I find G&G moderately diverting; Warhol annoys me endlessly. No artist is deserved of any position, in many respects, but it doesn't concern me when the odd one gets remunderation for their efforts, whether I like their efforts or not.

Yeah, but whereas Warhol is certainly "branded" as being the guy who repeats the images, his work is much more than that. Warhol idolized Picasso. He had several phases he went through with his art.

With Gilbert & George, what we get is the early artschool installation (video & otherwise) experiments (as Tokolosh referred to) and then in the '80s they became known for doing this one certain thing. And they've just continued to do that same thing right up until the present. Look, there's no way to get around it. No matter how much they've "varied" the work internally over the years, it's still the same damn picture when one gets right down to it with the same damn philosophy of art. It's madness.

If anything, maybe we can open up a dialogue on why we feel certain artists are more-or-less insulated from the ordinary vicissitudes of the art market.
Chuck Close is another case in point. I just don't get how this guy has branded himself and stuck around all these years. It's gotta be some in$ider crap combined with the vacuum being filled with a lack of talent because no really great artist has come along in some time and there are no groups or art movements of particular note in far too long as well.

I was gonna mention Close in relation to this argument.
Total agreement.

I'm nota huge fan of their work, it just doesn't really have any effect on me. However, I like Gilbert And George themselves. They're funny. Just a pair of eccentric old men. They're harmless really.

So I should hold my horses or otherwise
call off my dogs, then?:o

I like them. At their best (which isn't reflected in something like Planed at all) they tap into that whole sacred iconography thing in such a way that I've always thought would look fantastic in some old cathedral.

Underneath the Arches

I dream my dreams away.

Underneath the arches,
On cobblestones I lay.
Ev'ry night you'll find me,
Tired out and worn.
Happy when the daylight comes creeping,
Heralding the dawn.
Sleeping when it's raining,
And sleeping when it's fine,
I hear the trains rattling by above.
Pavement is my pillow,
No matter where I stray.
Underneath the Arches
I dream my dreams away.

... and I can relate, as my job would be fucking perfect for a robot with OCD.

I wouldn't claim any great importance, meaning or longevity for their work, but I will say that when the original pieces are seen properly displayed in a gallery setting, there is a certain aesthetic attractiveness about them. I'm not especially a fan, but I'm not totally averse to the stuff either.

I too quite like Gilbert and George themselves. There was a two-part South Bank Show about them a number of years ago that was very good.

kill them.

someone started to tell me how gilbert and george were partly responsible for the steep decline in standards in british art schools, but our conversation got interupted. it wouldn't surprise me if there were some element of truth to it.

art is totally fucked these days, the art establishment needs to be destroyed. it's going to take decades and decades to set the damage straight.

If you want to accomplish that, guess where they live? On the Kingsland Road. I was telling Bunbury and Tokolosh that I had them sitting in front of me on the bus about a week and a half ago. It's your chance of making it in the art world, so throw a brick at them or something.

i don't really want to go to prison though, i'd get raped no end because i'm so pretty

Yeah, but a pretty face won't help you make it in the art world, unless you start thinking of yourself as a living work of art like Gilbert & George, innit?

i don't want to make it in the art word, it's full of pricks, i want nothing to do with them

I have some repairing to do in the kitchen, are you on call 24/7?

True, but the same can be said about certain areas of the music world.

If it's any consolation, I met a proper art man the other week (stuff in the Saatchi Gallery and everything) and he was thoroughly nice and not a prick at all.

I'm not sure, but i assume Toilet & Bowels means the art pricks in London, and he's not far off the mark. They're mostly a bunch of dickheads who deserve stoning in the name of art.

Hmm I think my problem with Gilbert and George is the obviousness of it all. Trying to be profound when really saying nothing in particular. I can't help but view G&G as one-dimensional. Their work doesn't grab me in anyway. I just feel so indifferent to it all. It doenst excite me in anyway to delve deeper into any of their work.

So I dont hate them, I just dont care. Besides I can't imagine being able to hate any artist like I hate Mark Rothko.

seriously, you have some of the worst opinions

Every other house in Britain seems to have a Rothko print on the wall. His work is just plain, dull and inoffensive enough to match that Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen wallpaper you buy for £7.99 in Focus Do-It-All without scaring your 60 year old neighbour when she pops in for tea. He has become the artist of the Ikea generation...

I understand the huge influence he has had and I appreciate his importance. I'll even admit to liking some of his later stuff. But I find his work in general hugely overated. Sometimes the art world (especially in this current climate) latches on to some unfathomably dull artists.

I think that's probably a fair assesment of Rothko - I can't say I've seen any houses with Rothko prints in them mind. I adore him, but like so very many artists, you have to see the works in the right context to appreciate it. The Rothko room in the Tate Modern is one of my favourite spots in London.

On that note, I saw the Francis 'Franky' Bacon jobby at the Tate the other weekend. Never seen any of his stuff 'in the flesh'. Very, very disturbing, in a good way.

yeah but judging rothko on an athena poster of one of his paintings is like seeing a photograph of the mountains and then acting like you've just been skiing.

I agree to an extent. My favourite artist, an abstract expressionist called Cesar Manrique is probebly under-appreciated because the most important element of his paintings is usually texture. Its doesnt transtate well to print.

I guess what I dislike about Rothko is his use of colour.

i don't know about any rothko prints but they seem to have been popular in england-- one is "featured" in russel hoban's "the medusa frequency" where it is said to be in the office of comic book publisher sol mezzerot. that's a late-80's novel though-- perhaps it was a passing fad?

HOWEVER-- judging rothko by house prints for the living room is completely wrong. i've been in the presence of some of his paintings and i don't think they'd fit into a regular-size house, they are HUGE, and the impact they have on you has a lot to do with that physical presence.

what you're saying is like only knowing lions from a postcard and saying "oh, lions don't scare me". sure they dont...

In defence of Washing Machine, Rothko's work, which is great, doesn't translate too well on a small print. Bacon's work, on the other hand, has rarely failed to move me even on a magazine's photograph.

I don't completely disagree but does making something bigger make it any better. Like I said its his use of colour. I just don't 'get' it.

I move we continue to persecute Washing Machine. All in favour...

do you really want an answer to that, or are you just pretending?

*cries*

Look, i think that what he's trying to say is that his work doesn't say much to him, what's the problem with that?

Do you want a smiley? Here's one for you: :D .

here's one for you:

aroused now?

:p

if you ever make it out of the provinces and up to the big smoke you should go and have a look at the rothko room at the tate modern and see what you think of his work then, you really have to see his work first hand to get any idea of what he was all about.