Brafa 2019: Gilbert & George – Bearded Troglodytes
Rebecca Wallersteiner travels to Brussels to meet the famous duo who turned themselves into one of the most famous “living” artworks
“When we were young you couldn’t get a job in a bar if you had a beard. Now you can’t get a job in a cocktail bar, unless you have a beard,” said Gilbert and George, when I followed them around the Brafa art fair, in Brussels last month. Their words sprang to mind when I admired an anarchic highlight of the Fair, “Beard Alert” 2015 presented by the Bernier/Eliades Gallery, Athens. Part of the series ‘The Beard Pictures,’ this mixed media work features the normally clean-shaven Gilbert & George as digitally manipulated, brightly-coloured and extravagantly bearded troglodytes – eerie, lurid and crazed. With echoes of the sensitive, provocative art of Weimar Germany, they evoke a dream-like world of paranoia, destruction and madness challenging the viewer with primal aggression. Often the carnival-mask like beards are made from leaves, or barbed wire, covering not only the duo’s lower faces but their entire bodies. Oddly, their artworks remind me of stained glass windows in Cathedrals.
In an old warehouse in the city centre Gilbert and George sang “Underneath the Arches” which they first started singing in galleries in the 1960s, when they were both young artists. The mainly European audience listened intently, many looking a bit puzzled – obviously not recognising the British music hall tune from the 1930s.
Gilbert and George were in Brussels as guest of honour of Brafa, one of Europe’s leading art fairs. Each year the fair chooses an artist to open the fair. Last year it was Christo. Although they seem quaintly British singing “Underneath the Arches” somehow it seemed fitting that they were there – as Brussels is the city of Magritte and surrealism (as well as the EU). And what could be more surrealist than Gilbert and George. “Belgian collectors were the first to begin collecting our art – so we have always had a soft spot for Belgians,” said the duo.
Now in their mid-seventies, it is easier to tell them apart despite their matching suits and ties. George is the tall, professorial-looking English one, Gilbert the smaller, Italian one. The duo met in London, in 1967, at St Martin’s School of Art (now Central St Martins). I’ve always liked their big, bold artworks, but somehow have been more mesmerized watching the couple interact with each other – they are their greatest work of art. “We were the centre of our art,” explained Gilbert.
Seeing them come down to breakfast next morning, (by coincidence staying in the same hotel), I half expect them to burst into music hall song, or shout “Shit”, “Cunt” or “Fuck the Teachers” – but they remain quietly mysterious, rather like sphinxes. Over my croissant and coffee at the next table I ponder what Magritte would have made of them – or they of him – as they don’t like hobnobbing with other artists.
“Art has to be subversive,” Gilbert and George have said. They want to annoy and disgust as well as to amuse and entertain.
Despite their anarchism, they are pleasantly old-fashioned and don’t use mobile phones or social media. George Passmore was brought up by his mother in Devon, after his father left home when he was a baby. He won a place a Dartington Hall, a progressive private school, which encouraged his artistic abilities and he was accepted at art school, later going on to St Martin’s where he met Gilbert Prousch. They became close friends. Fellow students included Barry Flanagan and Richard Long.
Today Gilbert and George are celebrated around the world, but they seem very grounded, although still anarchic outsiders at heart. They still draw their inspiration from their daily life in their popular district of London’s East End, in contact with a less than affluent cosmopolitan population. They then translate their day-to-day experience into great themed series where they deal with subjects such as sex, religion, corruption, violence, hope, fear, racial tensions, patriotism, addiction and death. Their studio is situated in a former factory which links two Huguenot houses in Fournier Street in Spitalfields, where they have lived since the late 1960s. Now houses in their street are highly sought after, but it was a tough and poor area when they moved in – a world away from the Hotel Amigo, with its plush, richly-coloured Flemish furnishings, where we are now enjoying breakfast.
Owned by Rocco Forte, and designed by his elegant sister Olga Polizzi, Hotel Amigo is set in a 500 year old townhouse and blends typical Anglo-Italian warmth with style. The bathrooms are marbled and spotless. Whenever I stay in the hotel, I slip away to walk the short distance to the medieval Grand Place, along winding cobbled streets to marvel at the magnificent Guild-houses.
The “living sculptures” haven’t changed much since I first saw them at a party, held for them in the Groucho Club more than 25 five years ago, to celebrate their work being brought to Moscow by the art dealer James Birch, then nicknamed “Prince of Soho”. On that night, vodka flowing liberally as Cossack dancers whirled around the centre of the packed room. All this flashes through my mind as I sip my coffee while Gilbert and George sit quietly, like an old couple, who can read each other’s thoughts.
Like Magritte Gilbert and George seem “normal and weird” at the same time – rather like Brussels itself.
Rebecca Wallersteiner stayed at the Hotel Amigo, Rue de l’Amigo 1-3, Brussels and visited the BRAFA Art Fair.
www.brafa.art