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Gilbert & George
March 04, 2007

We popped along to see Gilbert & George at Tate Modern on Friday whilst Chris was visiting. Are they the missing link between Morecambe & Wise and The Pet Shop Boys?

I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. I've never been able to decide what I make of Gilbert & George. I preferred the earlier work informed by 60s/70s gangster movies and magazine spreads, particularly Bloody Life No. 3. [which I can't find online and they didn't have a postcard of either], to the later post 80's stuff. It's a very well laid out exhibition allowing you to see how their work has evolved since they started, from the charcoal sculptures to using photography, adding colour, increasing the scale of the work etc.

What struck me the most was how easy it was to tell which decade their work came from at a glance and how much of the EastEnd it evokes; whether the stark B&W works of the 70s or the Keith Haring-esque colourings of the post AIDS 80s.

By the "post poo" works it all got too repetitive for my liking and the introduction of digitalisation added little, apart from the graffiti tags and Muslim text, to their work. The shock value of nudity and excrement has long gone [along with the Beatles "long hair" of the 60s]. Also, it seems a long time to work within the same constraints even if the works have got larger... For artists that originally referred to themselves as sculptors their work is persistently 2 dimensional although I guess their performance pieces added another dimension. What the show needs is the pair of them walking around pulling a few shapes.

We hoped to get down to the Andipa Gallery for a bit of indoor Banksy as well but that will have to wait. I think it's on a for a little while. Everything is for sale and should make the man a tidy sum I don't doubt.

The fantastic Modified Toy Orchestra are supporting Tunng as part of the South Bank's Ether 2007 festival this week. MTO produce work on the modified circuits of children's toys and use no midi or samples. Ether also includes the Human Beatbox Convention 2007.

I hope to spend this drizzly Sunday afternoon sniffing through the mixes posted at Players Association to see what I can find. Wonder where I can get myself a pot of Guinness Marmite? I'm sure our local Somerfield won't have any!

Categories: Music, Art, London

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