Gilbert & George’s new show is a game of two halves (unlike the gents themselves, who have functioned as a single creative entity for half a century). ‘Fuckosophy’ is like a Christmas dinner party game gone mad, while ‘The Beard Pictures’ are troubling variations on a theme.
‘The exhibition contains multiple swear words,’ reads a prim notice at the entrance. Actually, it mainly contains one. Apart from the odd ‘cunt’, ‘shit’ and ‘wanker’, ‘Fuckosophy’ consists of variations on the word ‘fuck’. Thousands and thousands of them, printed on the gallery walls, where the names of corporate sponsors usually appear. Some are straightforward (‘Fucking decent’, ‘You don’t fuck with me’), some are conceptual (‘Fuckland’, ‘Fucking 1939 to 1945’), some are whimsical (‘To fuck you nice’, ‘Fuckwell cottages’). Even when they were naughty young men, Gilbert & George were naughty old men, and this is relatable for anyone who’s got a sherried-up grandad in the corner.
‘The Beard Pictures’ are oddly calm after all that fucking. They continue G&G’s multi-panel, stained-glass window approach, and they’re as disturbing as anything they’ve ever done. Their last two huge shows, ‘London Pictures’ and ‘Scapegoating Pictures’ used political motifs; here, the references are oblique and nightmarish. Gilbert & George are Photoshopped into near-unrecognisablity; the titular beards are leathery, protean and strangular, embossed with patterns of leaves or chicken wire. Around them whirl symbols that could be a state of the nation in shorthand: burglar alarms, adverts for Wanstead massage parlours, Christmas decorations, beer, barbed wire. The whole thing looks like a cross between an allotment, a detention centre and a school project about paganism, with G&G as creepy MCs, lurking behind their fake beards. It’s great. Like or loathe Christmas, Gilbert & George are a proper festive fucking treat.…Read more by
