Gilbert & GeorgeGeorge the Cunt and Gilbert the Shit 1969

This ‘magazine sculpture’ was published in the journal Studio International in 1970, where it was shown in black and white with the offending words censored. Gilbert & George have described this work as an attempt to pre-empt criticism of themselves: ‘we knew there was a battle ahead and we wanted to be in there first, long before somebody could say we weren’t good artists, we couldn’t draw or we couldn’t paint, long before all that criticism began, we had already attacked ourselves, called ourselves “a Shit and a Cunt”’.