Sunday, February 15, 2009

Out Spotlight LXII

Today's Out Spotlight are the artists Gilbert & George.

Gilbert Proesch was born in San Marino, Italy, in a village located in the Dolomite Mountains, in 1943. His father was a shoemaker and he trained as a woodcarver in his father's workshop. Gilbert later went on to study at the Wolkenstein School of Art, the Hallein School of Art in Austria, and the Akademie der Kunst in Munich.

George Passmore also comes from a working class family. Born in Plymouth, Devon in 1942, he was raised in Tiverton. He left school to work in a shop when he was fifteen years old and eventually studied at the Darlington Adult Education Center in Devon and the Darlington Hall College of Art.

George first met Gilbert Proesch on 25th September 1967 while studying sculpture at St Martins School of Art, London. The two claim they came together because George was the only person who could understand Gilbert's rather poorly spoken English. In a 2002 interview with the Daily Telegraph they said of their meeting: 'it was love at first sight'. It is widely assumed that Gilbert & George are lovers, although they always dismiss questions about their sex lives.

They were initially known as performance artists. While still students they made The Singing Sculpture (1970), for which they covered themselves in gold metallic paint, stood on a table, and mimed to a recording of Flanagan and Allen's song Underneath the Arches, sometimes for hours at a time.

A number of works from the early 1970s consisted of the two of them getting drunk, usually on gin. Smashed (1973) was a set of photographs documenting a drunken evening, while Gordon's Makes Us Drunk is a film of the pair drinking Gordon's gin and listening to Elgar and Grieg, occasionally saying Gordon's makes us very drunk' or a slight variant thereof. This work, in common with many others by Gilbert and George, is executed in a completely deadpan way.

The matching business suits which they wore for these performances became a sort of uniform for them, and they rarely appear in public unless wearing them. It is also virtually unheard of for one of the pair to be seen without the other. They refuse to disassociate their performances from their everyday lives, insisting that everything they do is art. The pair regard themselves as 'living sculptures'.The pair are perhaps best known for their large scale photo-montages, such as Cosmological Pictures (1993), frequently tinted in extremely bright colours, backlit, and overlaid with black grids so as to resemble stained glass windows. Gilbert & George themselves often feature in these works, along with flowers and youths, their friends, and echoes of Christian symbolism. The early works in this style were in black and white, with red and yellow touches in later series. Later these works moved to use a range of bold colours. Their 2005 work, Sonofagod, returned to a more sombre and darker palette.

Some series of their pictures have attracted media attention through including potentially shocking imagery, including nudity, depictions of sexual acts, and bodily fluids. In the 1980s, the artists began to create an increasing number of works with gay themes.

The anatomically explicit work entitled Hunger (1982) is illustrative of lust's urgency. This work presents two faces--one red with yellow highlights, the other, yellow with red highlights, painted in the same reversed patterning--engaged in fellatio. The red and yellow colors seem to speak of reciprocal, hot-blooded desire soon to be followed by the electric impulse of sexual climax.


Good (1983) makes a statement about the ambiguity of gay desire. This photographic work is overlaid against a gray-toned brick wall. A Latin cross, the central symbol of the Christian faith, is formed of over-lapping red roses, a Catholic symbol for the Virgin Mary. The rose is also a visual representation of the anus, locus of male-male sexual desire. Rose Hole (1980) uses the same sexual coding. In 1986 Gilbert and George attracted criticism from left-wing commentators for a series of works seemingly glamorizing 'rough types' of London's East End such as skinheads, while a picture of an Asian man bore the derogatory title 'Paki'.

They have been residents of Fournier Street, Spitalfields, East London for many years.

They won the Turner Prize in 1986, and represented the UK at the 2005 Venice Biennale.


Gilbert & George

25 comments:

destiny said...

Fascinating spotlight today. I don't really keep up with the art world, but I'm still surprised I've never heard of them given the controversial nature of some of their work. Personally I don't always like a lot of the art that is done in this style, but I do really appreciate artists who push the boundaries like this. And it certainly makes more interesting viewing and discussion, which in of itself is a worthy goal for art.

I really do believe that artists are true themselves the audience will come, even if it takes awhile. Getting back to Tom's comments about Rufus, the audiences have always been very diverse when I've seen him, young, old, gay, straight, couples, groups, singles, and, according to Rufus, mothers and daughters. It fascinates me too because it's the kind of music you don't think of straight guys as liking, and yet there they are in the audience. One of the first places I heard Rufus is on a show on one of the college stations that plays mostly rock, especially of the 70s variety, but with a sprinkling of people like Sinatra. The two deejays are typical rock and roll type guys in their 40s or maybe even 50s.

And yet I bet a lot of people told Rufus when he was starting out that he would end up in a gay ghetto if he was openly gay and didn't do more traditional, straight singer-songwriter music, say, like his father.

london tb said...

^ Rufus has probably the most diverse audience I have ever seen at a gig.

G&G, I love them - I love where they live, though it's a bit more commercialised and built up than when they moved in. Amazing architecture.

My husband in his youth greeted them one day in central London, and they said "how do you do, young man". Well, I think that was probably George. Anyway he was thrilled. They are national treasures.

london tb said...
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Anonymous said...

Rufus Wainwright spent most of his youth in Montréal! The club circuit scenario out there is not to be mixed up with prevailing conditions in Hollywood. This is of course not denying any hardships Rufus faced while growing up, especially in London.
Rufus is God. He sings to exhaustion and can then make his fans at the backstage, roll with laughter.
Great job on the spotlight, SK. The stained glass works reminded me of Chagall. G&G have figured out quite a novel, clever technique.

Florida Tom said...

The main hall at the Kimmell Center in Philadelphia is called the Verizon Hall. The room holds over 2500 people. Last night show was sold out weeks ago.

Recent news in Philadelphia was that the Kimmell center was having financial difficulties because the crowds have been small. Well the place was jammed packed last night.


There were many older people last night. I wonder if the draw there are Rufus parents. They have many fans and are very well liked.


I got a kick out of a recent interview Rufus did when he said he only knew three famous people. Elton John, Jake Gyllenhaal, and reese witherspoon. Later in the interview he said that it is easier for men to come out in the musical industry and virtually impossible ofr a HW leading man to come out. Wonder where he got the info.

prairiegirl said...

Tom, glad to hear you had such a great time at Rufus W's concert. That must've been fantastic. He's a very charming guy - I sure enjoyed his dvd "Judy!Judy!Judy!". And how cool was that to have seen him walk by. Pretty cool.

I know everyone must've been disappointed to see the Arriving @ LAX pictures yesterday, myself included. I think there was always the outside hope that he may've stayed in NYC a couple days more, but you knew that just wasn't going to happen.Is it any coincidence that in the pictures that were posted, body language takes on telltale signs of a ducked head, shoulders & arms turned inward, and face darkly shadowed under the cap. Don't think so. Welcome back to Reekeworld. Was a nice little vacation getaway, but it never really was totally out of mind, was it.

Kind of interesting the red satin lining of the coat he had on in NYC, but coming back it's not there. Why do you have 2 different long coats? Those wool coats are heavy; can't imagine even wanting to pack one, let alone 2. Can you imagine the room one would take in your bag? Yikes.

Well, everyone have a nice Sunday. Getting ready to head over to the folks' for the day. Need to start thinking about birthday present shopping for my nephew as he gets ready to reach the double digits this year, the big 10. As he says, "2 more years and I get to sit in the front seat!" Of the car, he means, lol. Ah, the things that little ones look forward to, huh?

prairiegirl said...

Oh man, I just realized I need to change my avatar. Valentine's 2009 is over. Will have to fix that tonight. I'll go with Heath until Oscars is over.

Anonymous said...

He is wearing the same coat. The lining is grey with red sewned on for some odd reason, you can see the grey here on the JJ pics from Thursday:

http://justjared.buzznet.com/gallery/photos.php?yr=2009&mon=02&evt=gyllenhaal-vanya&pic=jake-gyllenhaal-uncle-vanya-02.jpg

It looks like the red attached/linen part was sewn in so that you can't really see it unless it's pictured as it was on IHJ.

Florida Tom said...
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Florida Tom said...

Jersey Tom said...
Just checked out the pictures from the after party for opening night of Uncle Vanya. That is definetely the happiest I have seen Jake in a long time. You can see the effection he has for his sister.

Of course he was posing for those pictures. All the pictures we have seen of Jake lately (although maybe staged)have been taken by the paps so Jake is not gonna be smiling away. I must agree he has aged. I wonder if he is feeling tremendous pressure in living a life that he doesn't really feel comfortable with but has chosen because of money and fame. I'm very sure that he is one among many that are doing it in HW but maybe Jake deep down inside hates it. Maybe soon he will say enough but def. not till after POP.

destiny said...

Interesting that G&G chose to use a rose as a symbol in their work, I would imagine that they want you to think of the way O'Keefe's flowers are so suggestive of women.

Anonymous said...

OMG Family Guy tonight. Cleveland's gotta open a vault, pulls Reese out of the bag and uses her chin to cut it open.

prairiegirl said...

I must agree he has aged.

Most of the time, it seems like he has. But sometimes he doesn't. I spent some time late this morning going through some pictures on IHJ (oh, BTW, thanks, grey! Not a big deal, but thanks for correcting my observation) from 2005-2006 as I've never spent time looking at those. I've seen alot of them, but only single shots that were posted elsewhere on the web. And considering that was only 3-4 years ago, it's amazing how different he looked then, and I don't mean of course that he looked younger. But he was totally relaxed & uncaring looking. He wasn't glaring at the paps all the time nor hiding his face, tilting his face down all Greta Garboish. Not that he didn't do it; I'm sure there were moments. But the ones I looked at, he didn't do that stuff at all. In fact, I was surprised at the number of shots on a couple of them. The one set I was fascinated with was in 2005 when he was having lunch, I think, with his mom, Peter S. & Maggie. And I have a feeling he must've just very recently gotten Boo because between he & Naomi, they were carrying him around in his puppy carrier and he was the tiniest thing. Now looking at that set (and I think there were over 50 pics), it was like night and day. Those paps snapped the entire meal, it looked like, to their goodbyes as they parted, to Jake & his mom walking around with Boo in his carrier, and what looked like a stop at a pet shop. Talk about privacy invading!

The other thing that got me was the tenderness & care with which he held that Boo. He held that puppy like it was a baby. He wiped something off of its paw. Him & his mom fussed with it, putting him in & out of his carrier, he held him either during or after the meal, and Maggie was kissing on him like crazy when they were all saying their goodbyes. I mean, he was more tender with that Boo than I've seen him be with you know who. And seeing all of that, I still have some hope.

Hope for what, I'm not sure, LOL, but hope for something. Now, what I'm curious about is why Reeke would have to go on until the release of PoP. (I'm sure someone will point it out to me). Why not an amicable break up? What would be impossible about that? I know I'm slow when it comes to this stuff, so someone help me out. Is it because he just needs to "be involved with someone" during the release of the movie? When someone has a new movie coming out, is it always imperative that the star(s) be in a hot, new relationship at the time of release in order to sell the movie? Why is that?

Is it because Reese is one of the backers of the movie and she is the one who needs to be attached to someone at the time of the movie release?

Or is it because the fauxmance is to make Jake look totally straight for the sake of the movie's success (in Disney's eyes)?

But, if that's the case, if after 1 1/2 to 2 years of rumors/planted stories to the rags/photo ops/and People magazine touting him as Boyfriend of the Year, etc., all of that isn't doing it, then why would you still keep at it for a whole other year or so? Or, if it has been deemed a success, then end it on an amicable note (she doesn't want to get married, he does, they just can't get past that). And both parties are free to move on.

Or is one of Ted's insinuations correct in that neither wants to end it. That Jake doesn't mind doing the bearding at all and in fact likes it. I don't know - I find that one hard to believe, tho. Most of the time, their faces don't seem to indicate that they just are that into it, lol. Judging by the change in his persona when he is with her, this doesn't seem so.

Sorry for the long post. I guess I'm just not totally understanding. The whole thing could be analyzed to death, I suppose. And I think I've cathartisized (such a word?) out all my thoughts on this. Very therapeautic to put it out there.

Anonymous said...

Prairie Girl, I wish that I could
express myself as well as you! I
have to agree with you! I know that
Jake has always said that his career was very important. To me, if he loves Reese, why not say so?
As for Austin, I would hate for Jake to cut people out of his life
completely over time! IF they have
a child together, it will be extra
hard on him on her.
I have just one question-do
you think that Ted will hang up the
Toothy Tile saga forever or hand it
over to this Ian Halperin? I hope
not!! Let me know your opinions on
this. Whatever happens, promise me
that OMG WILL NOT CLOSE!!
What I am trying to say is if
you really love someone, you had
better hold on to them because things like that only happen once
in a lifetime! If you lose them
because of your career, you will
regret it for the rest of your life!!

Anonymous said...

How many of you think that Jake and Reese will show up as a couple
at the Academy Awards?

Anonymous said...

Jake or his beard have no reason i.e. nominations, award worthy acting, serious subject matter, to be at the Oscars. And considering their latest silly career choices, alienating behavior and a growing lack of respect for them from the film community, probably won't be for a long time.

Anonymous said...

I think Jake "sees the advantage" of bearding. As long as he hangs on to Reese's arm, they can float the rumors about Reese is pregnant, Holidays in Egypt, Reeke getting married, engaged, what a fantastic bf/step dad he is, blah...blah. All of which is publicity. Keeps them in the public eye when there is nothing else to talk about both of them.

Of course if he came out there'll be a heap of publicity but his minders including his Mama is quite convinced it will be career suicide and I don't think they are willing to take the chance.

Jake looked happy around 2005 I think because he had just completed Jarhead and BBM. He was at the top of his career and he was the it boy. Yeah he was a happy little chappie. Now, all that's in the past he last films were not exactly the best and he has no projects.

Stubborn TB said...

Jake looked happy around 2005 I think because he had just completed Jarhead and BBM. He was at the top of his career and he was the it boy. Yeah he was a happy little chappie. Now, all that's in the past he last films were not exactly the best and he has no projects.

Jake was rumored to have wanted to come out in 2005 and that he actually did to some publications.
I can remember at least two that seemed very interesting and it was very obvious that certain parts had been edited out in a rush.
One to the point that it didn't even correspond to the cover anymore, the other, so the question and answer didn't seem to fit anymore.

And I don't get where the idea that Jake is hurting for work comes from. He just did three movies in only one year. Is the possibility of him deciding to take a break for a few months too out there?
Sides, with most of his movies he regularly waits until the last minute to announce he's been signed on, so for all we know he might be in talks for several movies at the moment.

Not sure how that waiting fits into him supposedly doing everything to get publicity either...

Anonymous said...

Not sure how that waiting fits into him supposedly doing everything to get publicity either...

It's not just publicity - it's "Jake is straight" publicity, something that every Hollywood producer appreciates.

Anonymous said...

I can remember at least two that seemed very interesting and it was very obvious that certain parts had been edited out in a rush.

Which ones?

Anonymous said...

In reply to Stubborn Tb

If Jake wanted to come out he would have. Whether publications cut out stuff or not has no bearing on it.

Jake's movies after BBM have been flops. His acting not the best. Nailed? whatever happened to that? "Brothers" we'll wait & see. PoP?! Jake is taking a break? A nice long relaxing one - kicking and spitting and almost daily photo ops. Oookayyyy! And why are people all over the net saying he's not looking good?

If you think Reeke is not for publicity and to get him a straight image, you are being deliberately obtuse.

Stubborn TB said...

Whew, this is going to be a long comment, sorry for that:

If Jake wanted to come out he would have. Whether publications cut out stuff or not has no bearing on it.
Well, it sounded like he did come out to them, but it was cut out in a rush to retrace it again. You can see it differently and that's okay, it's the impression I got of it.
Should he have raised hell about it being retracted? Yes, definitely, but I think Jake is someone that has a hard time standing up to someone, especially if it's a mother-type kind of woman.

Jake's movies after BBM have been flops. His acting not the best. Nailed? whatever happened to that? "Brothers" we'll wait & see. PoP?! Jake is taking a break? A nice long relaxing one - kicking and spitting and almost daily photo ops. Oookayyyy! And why are people all over the net saying he's not looking good?
So, basically what you're saying is that all his upcoming movies will be flops? Because you have decided that his acting is not the best based on what?
I seem to remember a lot of people saying Heath is a horrible actor before BBM and that him as the Joker is a horrible choice and will fail without a doubt.

Almost daily photo-ops? Where are you seeing those? Is there some secret picture fault where they're posted? Maybe one or two every other week is daily to you, but not to me. Not to mention the long times while he was working where there was nothing for months.
Sure I'd love to not see him with Reese ever anymore, but people are making it so much bigger than it is. PR wouldn't even have to do any work in the "they're always together" line of thought, since people are elevating once every two weeks to "always" all by themselves.

If you think Reeke is not for publicity and to get him a straight image, you are being deliberately obtuse.
I never said that Reeke is not for publicity. Of course it is.
All I'm saying is that not everything he does is about publicity which is what some people are implying here.

It's not just publicity - it's "Jake is straight" publicity, something that every Hollywood producer appreciates.
Maybe I really am obtuse, but how exactly is not announcing a new project until the very end making him look straight?

Which ones?
I'm at work right now, so I can't search for it at the moment. I will try to find it at home, but I managed to wreck my external hard-drive where I had all that stuff on, so it might take a while.

Stubborn TB said...

Oh, one more thing about people saying he's not looking good.

They're saying that no matter how he looks.
When he looks serious, he's sad and depressed.
When he looks happy, he's faking it and is therefore sad and depressed.

It doesn't really matter what he does or how he acts, people are interpreting it to fit what they think he's going feeling at the moment.

prairiegirl said...

Hey flf! Hi! Hey Stubborn - hi to you, too. Hey, we're all 3 on the same side; although, just apparently seem to differ opinion on the nature of some of these questions. See what in the heck that guy does, lol? Amazing, isn't it.

I have to get going to work; wish I could hang around & throw in some more cents worth, I really need to put in for a day off, way overdue.

I gotta say, tho, that I don't put Jake up there with Heath, as far as acting is concerned, tho. Now, he was absolutely perfect in October Sky, although he was so young in that one. And no one could have played Jack Twist better; I don't think he got enough credit or recognition for that role. And I know alot of people loved Donnie Darko - I still have to watch that again to fully appreciate it so I can't say really how he was in that one. But since then, I think he just hasn't really had the appropriate role to fully utilize his capabilities.
Oh well, I can't finish this thought appropriately enough, running late now. So, hope this comment doesn't come off sounding as unfinished & incomplete as I think it does, lol.

Now, Stubborn, your last comment has me chomping at the bit, but heavy sigh, can't reply. One, probably better that I think on it for awhile before shooting off and two, that particular subject seems to be a real sore spot around here. As in hot potato.

Y'all have a good day today. Maybe see you at lunchtime today.

Anonymous said...

Maybe I really am obtuse, but how exactly is not announcing a new project until the very end making him look straight?

It doesn't, lol.

I will try to find it at home, but I managed to wreck my external hard-drive where I had all that stuff on, so it might take a while.

No problem, thanks!