GILBERT & GEORGE, MAJOR EXHIBITION
 
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Information and resources on 'Gilbert & George: Major Exhibition' at Tate Online.
floorplan
Concourse

The exhibition begins on the concourse with a selection of materials from the start of their career, including some of the postal sculptures that they sent out to major figures in the art world, and the original layout board for the 1969 Magazine Sculpture GEORGE THE CUNT AND GILBERT THE SHIT. The photo-pieces on the wall relate to the artists’ intense bouts of drinking in the early 1970s, an essential part of their lives which they felt should not be excluded from their art. The Drinking Sculptures use fractured viewpoints and tilted angles to suggest the feeling of getting riotously wasted. The HUMAN BONDAGE series explore their experiences of squalor and degradation, with images arranged in the shape of a reverse swastika or fylfot. The artists were using this symbol to make a statement about inner destruction. In the DARK SHADOW pictures which followed, clearly set inside their home in Fournier Street, disorienting double-exposures and blood-like spatters continue the descent into darkness and depression.

Click to see a larger version of the imageGilbert & George
HUMAN BONDAGE NO.5 1974
175 x 175 cm
Private collection, London
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Click to see a larger version of the imageGilbert & George
DARK SHADOW NO.4 1974
211 x 156 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
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DARK SHADOW NO.6 1974
151 x 206 cm
Private collection, London
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DARK SHADOW NO.8 1974
151 x 206 cm
Van Abbemuseum Collection, Eindhoven
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GEORGE THE CUNT AND GILBERT THE SHIT 1969
A Magazine Sculpture, Private collection
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PHOTO-PIECE 1971
159 x 143 cm
Collection S.M.A.K., Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium
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PHOTO-PIECE 1971
130 x 180 cm
Agnes and Frits Becht Collection, Naarden, The Netherlands
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BALLS or THE EVENING BEFORE THE MORNING AFTER 1972
211 x 437 cm
Tate. Purchased 1972
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AXE BAR 1973
129 x 109 cm
Private collection
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GIN AND TONIC 1973
71 x 42 cm
Private collection, courtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York
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THE GLASS 2 1973
130 x 85 cm
Private collection, London
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HEAD OVER HEELS 1973
277 x 64 cm
Collection of Samuel and Ronnie Heyman
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RATHER SPORTY 1973
15 x 96 cm
Private collection, courtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York
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‘TO HER MAJESTY’ 1973
145 x 350 cm
Collection Max de Jong, France
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TWO A.M. 1973
122 x 89 cm
Collection Herbert
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Other pictures in this room

Gilbert & George
THE EFFECT formerly known as A DRINKING PIECE 1973
173 x 82 cm
Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi

Entrance

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ALL MY LIFE I GIVE YOU NOTHING AND STILL YOU ASK FOR MORE 1970
193 x 75 cm
A charcoal on paper sculpture
Private collection, courtesy MaxmArt, Mendrisio
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