Gilbert & GeorgeBalls: The Evening Before the Morning After - Drinking Sculpture 1972

'We want our art to speak across the barriers of knowledge directly to People about their Life, and not about their knowledge of art' wrote Gilbert and George in their manifesto What Our Art Means (1986). Drinking, and getting drunk, was an early theme in their work. This photographic work was made when the artists were still experimenting with different media for the creation of 'living sculpture'. The photographs were taken at Balls Brothers Wine Bar in Bethnal Green Road, the artists' local drinking haunt. The images are distorted, fragmented and blurred to evoke
the experience of being drunk.