Gilbert & George
Iconic British artist couple, Gilbert Proesch, was born in 1943, in St. Martin de Tor, in the Italian Dolomites region and George Passmore, on January 8, 1942 in Totnes, Great Britain, being raised by a poor single mother. They met at ST Martin’s School of Art and have been inseparable ever since.
Gilbert after studying at the art academies of Wolkenstein, Hallein and Munich, moved to London where, in 1967, he met George at St Martin’s School of Art. They lived in London in a Georgian-style house in the Spitalfields area, which they filled with English neo-Gothic objects, ceramics and handcrafted furniture. Their disregard for established artistic notions brought them great fame. Their first works consisted of postcard sculptures: images of themselves accompanied by texts, which they sent to different people. They also posed as ‘living sculptures’. In the 1970s they made photographic pieces, which usually featured a grid arrangement of one or more photographs, to which they added areas of color. They usually depicted themselves in such works, although they also used models.
Figurative and conceptual, recognized for their distinctive and highly formal look, they draw from pop and surrealism. During the 1980s their photographic pieces became even more ambitious, both in scale and subject matter, exploring themes such as politics, religion and sex. They have held solo and group exhibitions in museums around the world, treasuring one of the most impressive and entertaining trajectories of contemporary art that does not forget its position as a reference of freedoms.
