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<\/p>\nPortrait by\u00a0Suki Dhanda for The Observer<\/p>\n
Gilbert Prousch and George Passmore\ufeff have lived in the same house on\ufeff Fournier Street in east London\ufeff for more\u00a0than half a century. When they moved in, the rent\u00a0for a floor was \ufeff\u00a312 a month and there were just two\u00a0curry houses on \ufeffnearby \ufeffBrick Lane.\ufeff Black soot covered everything, even the \ufeffNicholas Hawksmoor-\ufeffdesigned church whose spire looms malevolently over the neighbourhood.<\/p>\n
Thirty-nine years later, in 2007, that same church was commandeered by \ufeffSir Nicholas Serota, the former Tate director\ufeff who converted Bankside \ufeffpower \ufeffstation into the \ufeffworld\u2019s most visited museum of modern art\ufeff. Serota had given \ufeffGilbert and George a retrospective \ufeffat Tate Modern, a first for British artists.\ufeff In celebration, the pews of\ufeff Christ Church Spitalfields \ufeffhad been replaced with circular tables and white-jacketed waiters. Midway through the evening, Serota, who has a reputation for being somewhat \u201cheadmasterish\u201d, stood up and addressed the guests.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt any one moment,\u201d he said, of the previous decades, \u201cGilbert and George were in Fournier Street making work … And it is an extraordinary achievement to see this consistent way in which they have dealt with \u2026 spunk \u2026 piss \u2026\u201d Everyone laughed; the artistic duo had got \ufeffSerota to utter the words \u201cspunk\u201d and \u201cpiss\u201d into a microphone. As the speech concluded, George stared straight ahead while Gilbert bowed his head like a monk.<\/p>\n
T\ufeffhe Tate is not the behemoth it once was, and\u00a0the\u00a0arts, as\ufeff Serota recently made clear, has been \u201con\u00a0standstill funding since 2010\u201d.\ufeff It is against a cultural\u00a0backdrop of straitened circumstances that the Hayward\u00a0Gallery launches\ufeff its show\ufeff Gilbert & George: \ufeff21st\u00a0Century\u00a0Pictures. The title is a pun on the movie industry, though\ufeff\u00a0the artists, now \ufeff81\ufeff and \ufeff\ufeff84\ufeff respectively, claim not to\u00a0have watched a movie since \ufeff1978 (The Deer Hunter\ufeff, apparently). The exhibition will chronicle what we might term their late period. It will be their \ufeffsecond retrospective at the Hayward\ufeff and their \ufeff106th museum show.<\/p>\n
When I arrive at the artists\u2019 four-storey house, built for Huguenot silk weavers in the 18th century, its windows, frames painted yellow, are all shuttered. I am greeted cheerfully by Yu Yigang, who\u2019s dressed in a well-ironed shirt and a pair of thick-framed spectacles. \ufeffYu met the artists at a \ufeff1993 show in Shanghai\ufeff. A few years later, he moved in as their chief assistant. \ufeff\ufeffHe does a lot for\ufeff the pair: he navigates the internet for them, calls them cabs, assists them in the studio\ufeff and even fixes their breakfast\ufeff: \u201c\ufeffTwo teas and one sandwich.\u201d Previous \ufeffstudio assistants included Jake and Dinos\ufeff Chapman, who went on to find success with the YBAs.<\/p>\n
Yu leads me through the hallway, which is dark as a tomb and filled with pots (Gilbert and George have one of the UK\u2019s largest collections of 19th-century ceramics). Eventually, we emerge into the yard and cross the threshold of their attached studio. They\u2019re waiting for me at a table, inspecting a detailed miniature of the \ufeffforthcoming exhibition, appearing almost like giants.<\/p>\n
The studio is expansive. Roughly \ufeff25 years ago, Gilbert and George upgraded from analogue printmaking equipment to large digital printers. They aren\u2019t luddites. Their works are designed on \ufeffa computer before being printed out in large grids, square by square. The images mostly begin with photographs, which are scanned and digitised. Resultant artworks often feature detritus from the street, rude words scribbled on urban surfaces, even the pair\u2019s own blood, sweat, tears and semen, magnified into decorative abstraction. As a rule, pieces contain images of the artists themselves. They also have titles\ufeff \u2013 usually something impolite. Piled folders are variously labelled\ufeff Free Dick, \ufeffKiss Me (Black) and \u201c\ufeffFuck \u2019em All\u201d. A typical Gilbert and George is boldly coloured in trademark yellows, reds and blues, resembling stained glass.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s rare to know exactly how your interviewees will dress before you even show up, but Gilbert and George are not your usual interviewees. In the almost 60 years they\u2019ve worked together, they\u2019ve \ufeffin effect become one person\ufeff \u2013 or as they like to say\ufeff: \u201cT\ufeffwo people, one artist.\u201d\ufeff They dress the same: always in suits. Today, they\u2019re in Donegal tweed from a Tibetan tailor in\ufeff Clerkenwell. \u201cWe\u00a0use the same tailor until they either retire or die,\u201d George says\ufeff with pride. \u201cA Tibetan tailor! Isn\u2019t that marvellous; how multicultural.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As a rule, Gilbert\u00a0and George works, such as Funky 2020, contain images of the artists themselves<\/p>\n
Gilbert and George have done dozens of interviews over the years and often repeat stock phrases. If a journalist asks whether they argue, they\u2019ll respond: \u201cWe\u00a0call that the great heterosexual question.\u201d If another wonders what happens if one of them disappears under a passing car, they\u2019re met with: \u201cNever fear\ufeff \u2013 we always cross the road together.\u201d \ufeffGermaine Greer once wrote scathingly that the only way they could complete their work was by \u201cdying in unison\u201d.<\/p>\n
The pair do everything as one and have done so pretty much since the \ufeff25\ufeff September\ufeff 1967,\ufeff when they met at \ufeffSt Martin\u2019s \ufeffSchool of \ufeffArt \ufeffand fell in love. They are not religious. In fact, they scorn religion (though George\u2019s brother, \ufeffAlec, is a vicar\ufeff). However, they still maintain an almost divine interpretation of that first encounter. \u201cIt\u2019s all part of some great mixed-up scheme,\u201d George says of that moment. \u201cWe\u2019re not entirely in control of everything.\u201d They often equate their relationship to a kind of cloud that gathered around them. Gilbert recalls that George, who was born in \ufeffPlymouth\ufeff, was the only person who could understand his English. Gilbert grew up in \ufeffSouth Tyrol, northern Italy,\ufeff speaking \ufeffLadin\ufeff, a \ufefflanguage native to the Dolomites.<\/p>\n
Their routine is rigid. It\u2019s evolved so that they can think about art as much as possible. They wake at seven o\u2019clock, work until \ufeff11am or so, then go for lunch at a local cafe, \ufeffNilly\u2019s.\ufeff Sometimes they walk in near-perfect unison; sometimes they make the \ufeff500-metre journey by cab. After that, they work until\ufeff 6pm, watch the news, then set off to dinner at \ufeffMangal 1\ufeff in Dalston. Always Mangal 1. They used to go to Mangal \ufeffII, but that restaurant started playing music. Usually, they order lamb chops. \ufeffThe pair used to watch TV after dinner \u2013 \ufeffMidsomer Murders, then Heartbeat\ufeff \u2013 but nowadays they\u2019re straight to bed. Then the same again the next day. They also dream, \ufeffyou would imagine, together.<\/p>\n
The conjoinedness of Gilbert and George is perhaps the best thing about them. It\u2019s genuinely affirming to know that two people can live and work in such prolonged, intimate proximity. They do seem to love each other. However, they are different. \u201cGilbert is nice and quiet,\u201d says the proprietor of their local cafe, \u201cbut George wants to talk with everyone. When he sees someone handsome, he\u2019ll go up and talk to him.\u201d\ufeff George enjoys lewdness and flirtation. After our interview concludes, he bemoans the fact that I\u2019m not wearing jean shorts like Suki, our photographer. \u201cKiss, cross, screw!\u201d he says at one point, reading out one of their works, before gleefully asking me\ufeff: \u201cHave you tried that?\u201d<\/p>\n
When I was at art school at Goldsmiths in London \ufeff10 years ago, I don\u2019t remember Gilbert and George being seen as particularly relevant or cool. This was probably in part due to George\u2019s long-professed affection for the Tory party (he claimed to admire \ufeffDavid Cameron and George Osborne, as well as Margaret Thatcher\ufeff).<\/p>\n
\u201cThey just seem like Reform pub bores now,\u201d one of my former tutors says of their output, \u201cchurning out the same stuff decade after decade, with their Jacob Rees-Mogg line in being willing to offend Guardian readers.\u201d (Famously, Goldsmiths tutors don\u2019t mince\ufeff words.)<\/p>\n