Inspiration: Gilbert and George

I recently got around to reading the catalogue from the Gilbert and George retrospective at the Tate Modern in 2007. I found it nearly a year ago, smothered under a pile of discarded Chicken Soup for the Soul spinoffs at Community Thrift. I bought it, having only a slight familiarity with their work but knowing that it would be a shame not to shell out the few bucks it cost for such a classy art book that traveled all the way across the pond, and I'm super grateful that my modest investment turned out to be such a gold mine of inspiration:

(Hit the jump for much, much, more)

George the Cunt and Gilbert the Shit. 1969

Gilbert and George met at art students at St. Martins in the 60s, and have clearly been ruling at both life and art ever since. I find their creative process, use of color, and general comportment speaks right to the heart of my anxieties about...I dunno...making work and getting dressed and basically living in society and breathing and interacting with the human race.

Are You Angry or Are You Boring? 1977

For all of their prolific output, Gilbert and George rarely venture beyond their own neighborhood in London's East End. Photographs are the raw material for all of their work, yet none of their content is appropriated; it's merely the imagery of their everyday life. The late 70s stuff is particularly charged because the two just so happened to live in a major city during a period of social unrest and, you know, punk was being born; but the point is they never, even in the decades that followed, felt the need to look beyond the landscape of their own lives for inspiration and material. I don't think it's an anti-escapist pose so much as faith in the richness of one's own experience. It's so easy now to believe that creativity is somehow tied up with geography. They're not mutually exclusive, but they're also not one in the same: I find myself much more motivated to create when I'm out observing my own neighborhood* than when I'm stuck in a black hole of "inspiration" blogs that make me worry about other times and places I'll never see anyway.

*Have you ever seen a beetle-green donk with a rainbow Louis Vuitton soft-top speeding around around a sparkling lake? It's poetry.

Existers, 1984

Life and Death, 1984

The 80s and early 90s are by far my favorite period. Certain decades can be identified by an adherence to a strict color scheme—black white red, or black red yellow, etc—but during this time they went balls out (no pun intended) with their use of color. Just look at this stuff! It's so bold and bright and patently beautiful. I'm sure I was unwittingly referencing these color schemes when I was getting dressed last week. Isn't color supposed to be in again? That's like saying chutzpah is in. I'm pleased on any day I have the self-possession to walk out of the house looking half as crazy as these pieces.

City Fairies, 1991

Youth Faith, 1982

Street Bleached, 1991

Even though (or perhaps because?) their work is so huge and confrontational and razz-blammymatazz, Gilbert and George themselves are impeccable, mild-mannered English gentlemen. For me, that's the ultimate takeway: they respond to perceived social and political ills with all the vehemence of punk, but channel it completely into their work. Work that is disturbing and at times just plain gross (google their "shit series" if you must), but as artists and people they are beyond reproach, which in itself is a bit of a fuck you to clichéd trappings of how an artist looks and acts. Isn't it such a relief to not have to wear your craziness on your sleeve? I'll end here with the manifesto Gilbert and George crafted early in their career, which I believe can apply equally to anyone with even a spark of creative ambition:

The Laws of Sculptors


1 Always be smartly dressed. Well groomed relaxed friendly polite and in complete control.


2 Make the world believe in you and to pay heavily for this privilege.


3 Never worry assess discuss or criticize but remain quiet respectful and calm.


4 The lord chissels still, so don't leave your bench for long.

-Gilbert and George, 1969