Gilbert Prousch (or Proesch) (born in San Martin (San Martino), Italy, September 11, 1943) and George Passmore (born in Devon, England January 8, 1942), better known as Gilbert & George, are artists. They have worked almost exclusively as a pair. San Martin may mean: San Martin, a census-designated place and an unincorporated town located in California, or San Martín Department in Peru José de San Martín, South American hero of independence This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same... is the 254th day of the year (255th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1943 (MCMXLIII) was a common year starting on Friday (the link will display full 1943 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For other uses, see Devon (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... is the 8th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1942 (MCMXLII) was a common year starting on Thursday (the link will display the full 1942 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The definition of an artist is wide-ranging and covers a broad spectrum of activities to do with creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. ...

Early life

Gilbert was born in San Martin de Tor in Italy, and studied art at the Wolkenstein School of Art and Hallein School of Art in Austria and the Akademie der Kunst, Munich, before moving to England. George was born in Plymouth in the United Kingdom, and first studied art at the Dartington Hall College of Art and the Oxford School of Art, then part of the Oxford College of Technology, which eventually became Oxford Brookes University. San Martin (San Martino) (Italian: San Martino in Badia; German: ; Ladin: San Martin de Tor) is a comune (municipality) in the province of Bolzano-Bozen in the Italian region Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, located about 90 km northeast of the city of Trento and about 45 km northeast of... Akademie der Bildenden Künste München New Building Panoramic view of the Academy The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (German: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) was founded 1808 by Maximilian I of Bavaria in Munich as the Royal Academy of Fine Arts... Dartington College of Arts is a college in Totnes, Devon, South West England, specialising in Post-dramatic Theatre, Music, Performance Writing and Visual Performance, focusing on a performative and multi-disciplinary approach to the arts. ... Oxford Brookes University is a public university in Oxford, England. ...

The two first met on 25 September 1967 while studying sculpture at St Martins School of Art, now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, one of six colleges in the University of the Arts, 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." (Telegraph, 05.28.02). It is widely assumed that Gilbert & George are lovers, and although they dismiss questions about their sex lives, George, in the documentary 'Imagine', aired on 08.05.07 in the UK, referred to Gilbert and himself as "two poofs". Central Saint Martins - Southampton Row, Holborn Central Saint Martins (ex-St Martins) in Charing Cross Road. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... This article deals with The Daily Telegraph in Britain, see The Daily Telegraph (Australia) for the Australian publication The Daily Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper founded in 1855. ... Since its coinage, the word homosexuality has acquired multiple meanings. ...

Performance artists

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. The suits 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". In a 2001 interview with Tom O'Toole on Mid-West Radio, a local radio station in the west of Ireland, the pair stated that the living sculptures idea came to them from a visit to Knock Shrine, Co. Mayo Ireland where it is believed that an apparition of the Blessed Virgin, saints and angels occurred in 1879. It was reported on the "Weekly Arts" programme on Mid-West Radio on 14 February 2007 that Gilbert and George have recently accepted a commission for a piece of installation art which is to be located at the apparition site. This article is about Performance art. ... Flanagan and Allen were a British singing and comedy double act popular during World War II. Its members were Bud Flanagan (1896 - 1968) and Chesney Allen (1893 - 1982). ... Underneath the Arches is a popular song written by Reg Connelly and Bud Flanagan in 1931. ... Altar sculpture at Knock, based on accounts of the apparition. ...

Photo-montages

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, has returned to a more sombre and darker palette. Strictly speaking, stained glass is glass that has been painted with silver stain and then fired. ...

Some series of their pictures have attracted media attention through including potentially shocking imagery, including nudity, depictions of sexual acts, and bodily fluids, such as faeces, urine and semen. The titling of their series, such as "Naked Shit Pictures" (1995), has also contributed to media attention. In 1986 Gilbert and George attracted criticism 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". Nude redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Duration of sexual intercourse be merged into this article or section. ... Rabbit feces are usually 0. ... This article is about the urine of animals generally. ... Horse semen being collected for breeding purposes. ... Skinheads, named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, are a working-class subculture that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. ... It is proposed that this article be deleted, because of the following concern: Wikipedia is not a dictionary: WP:WINAD If you can address this concern by improving, copyediting, sourcing, renaming or merging the page, please edit this page and do so. ...

For many years they have been residents of Fournier Street, Spitalfields, East London. In 2000 they moved galleries to be represented by White Cube. Fournier Street, formerly Church Street, was the last to be built on the Wood-Michell estate in Spitalfields, London. ... Christ Church, Spitalfields Spitalfields, an area in Tower Hamlets, east London near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane which gets its name from a contraction of hospital fields, as there used to be a major hospital in the area. ... White Cube is a contemporary art venue in Hoxton in the East End of London. ...

In May 2007, Gilbert and George were the subject of a BBC 'Imagine' documentary presented by Alan Yentob. At the end of the programme a work entitled 'Planed' was made available as a free file download from the BBC and Guardian websites for 48 hours. People who downloaded the files could then print off and assemble the piece, and own an original Gilbert and George work for free. Alan Yentob (born March 11, 1947) is a British television executive. ...

A book of their work, Complete Pictures, 1971–2005, published in early 2007, includes over a thousand of their works. Each work is large in scale and is comprised of symmetrical arrangements of equal-sized square panels. The works average out to one work every 12 days for nearly 35 years. ^[1]

Awards

They won the Turner Prize in 1986, and represented the UK at the 2005 Venice Biennale. Tate Britain: the venue for the Turner Prize. ... Detail of exhibition. ...

Trivia

• Martin Clunes, while a struggling young actor in the early 1980s, was a photo model for Gilbert and George. He can be recognised in their 1983 work 'World'.

• The pair assumed ownership of a working men's cafe in Spitalfields near their house in the 1990s. For a time they were often to be found in the cafe and even serving behind the counter.

• They have their own dance called the 'bend-it'.

• The pair own one of the most powerful graphics workstation computers in the UK, needed to manipulate the huge file-sizes that producing their work requires.

• The pair inspired two characters, Man Green and Man Yellow, Chief Constables of the Science Gestapo, in Grant Morrison's comicbook series The Filth. The two characters appear in pastiches of Gilbert and George's artwork, with the separate sections of the photo montages acting as individual comic book panels.

• They have dinner in the same Kurdish restaurant in Dalston at the same time every night. George walks there while Gilbert sometimes takes a cab. [1]

• The music video for "This Is How It Feels" by Inspiral Carpets is visually styled on Gilbert and George imagery.

• The look Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart adopted in the early career of Eurythmics (both dressed in men's suits and ties) was said to be inspired by Gilbert and George.

• Billy Bragg, socialist English pop singer, refers to Gilbert and George in the chorus of "Take Down the Union Jack" on the 2002 album England, Half English.

• In the book Man, Machine and Music, Pascale Bussy claims that the look Kraftwerk adopted between 1974 and 1978 was partly inspired by Gilbert and George.

• It should be clear that homoeroticism, Judeo-Christian religion thematic elements, high-contrast blots, repetitious art sans overt commercialism is very Warholesque.

• Some of their works are similar to designs by tattoo artist Henk Schiffmacher (a.k.a Henky Penky).

Dr. Martin Clunes (born 28 November 1961 in Wimbledon, South London) is an English actor. ... Grant Morrison (born January 31, 1960) is a Scottish comic book writer and artist. ... Cover to The Filth trade paperback. ... This Is How It Feels was a 1990 single by the Inspiral Carpets. ... The Inspiral Carpets is an alternative rock band from Oldham in Greater Manchester, England formed by Graham Lambert in 1986. ... Annie Lennox (born 25 December 1954) is a Scottish musician, vocalist, Academy Award-winning songwriter. ... David Allan Stewart, often known as Dave Stewart (born September 9, 1952 in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear), is an English musician and record producer best known for his work with Eurythmics. ... For the approach to music education, see Eurhythmics. ... Stephen William Bragg (born December 20, 1957 in Essex, England), better known as Billy Bragg, is an English musician who blends elements of folk music, punk rock and protest songs. ... Kraftwerk (pronounced , German for power plant or power station) is an influential electronic-music band from Düsseldorf, Germany. ...

References

1. ^ Robert Ayers (August 14, 2007), Gilbert & George Are Workaholics, ARTINFO, <http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/25490/gilbert-george-are-workaholics/>. Retrieved on 15 April 2008 

Further reading

• Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures, Rudi Fuchs, Tate Publishing, 2007. ISBN 9781854376817
• Daniel Farson (2000). Gilbert and George: A Portrait. HarperCollins. London, 2000.

External links

• 2007 interview from Independent on Sunday ABC Arts magazine
• Gilbert and George: Major Exhibition at Tate Modern, London, 2007
• Gilbert and George's film "The World of Gilbert and George" as a RealMedia stream at Tate Online (includes a question and answer session with the audience)
• Complete Biography
• Arts: Gilbert and George on glbtq.com
• 'Gilbert and George unveil new hoodie art' – UK Guardian website, 23/5/2005
• Gilbert and George at Lehmann Maupin Gallery
• Gilbert and George at de Young - San Francisco
• Gilbert and George in the Video Data Bank