Gilbert (right) and George (left) photographed by Douglas Friedman 2012

Gilbert and George are back after six years of trawling the dark seas of the human psyche with hot-off-the-press banners announcing various victims of violent demise. The London Pictures are a compilation of the posters, pinched from local newsagents, that daily titillate passersby with lurid slogans of sex and evil, salacious fodder for a bored public. I caught up with the sartorially prim duo at New York’s Lehmann Maupin gallery to explore their fascinations with stabbings, stranglings, rapes and robberies.

“We think it’s extraordinary,” began Gilbert, “We are capable of incredible sins: The headline today is replaced by another tomorrow – to stimulate people, as you say…All our work has a moral dimension – a story to tell. You can like it or dislike it, but it’s not abstract art; we have subjects,” stated Gilbert with gravity, while George interceded, saying, “We even like it when young people say, We don’t know what the fuck to think,” his eye twinkling behind his scholarly-spectacles.

©GILBERT & GEORGE Hanged , 2011 mixed media 118.9 x 100 inches 302 x 254 cm Courtesy the artists and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

George (left) and Gilbert (right) photographed by Douglas Friedman 2012

©GILBERT & GEORGE Man Dies 2011 mixed media 88.98 x 150 inches 226 x 381 cm Courtesy the artists and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

G&G were distraught by the growing stacks of 3000 posters in their studio. As artists they are disciplined and disturbed at the same time; they sensed the ripples left behind by each tragedy through the victims, neighbours and relatives they affected. “If you have a family member in prison, the shame of it lasts generations. If you’re shopping the next day, what do you tell the shop where you buy milk?”

The media mirrors the anxieties of the masses but also feeds its hunger. In more liberal societies, the stories form moral edicts of what not to do, of what could happen, noisome reminders of our primitive failings. “It’s the price we pay for our freedom,” summarizes George. “It happens elsewhere too, Africa, China, though not as much reported… We are all complicit,” concludes Gilbert. The two are in the habit of finishing each other’s thoughts.

So with all the turmoil and mayhem, what karmic price will our species pay? Are we heading towards a successful balance? George responds without hesitation, “The world has never been a better place, especially the western world.” The youth are better informed; there is an acceptance of diversity with nations better connected around the world.

©GILBERT & GEORGE Fingle-Fangle, 2004 mixed media 111.02 x 198.43 inches 282 x 504 cm Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

We digressed briefly into non-western tangents: Whorehouses in Bangladesh and the linguistic absences of words relating to sex there. On their visit to India some twenty years ago, they recalled the English names of these ghettos: “In Mumbai it’s called Falkland Road, and in Delhi, it’s UK Road. In some places you walk by and the prostitutes lift their dresses and clearly you can see they are boys who have had their penis removed. It looks like a cat’s bum…”

G&G claim that they are two people but one artist. But, what about thinking outside that box? Like the Chapman Brothers splitting up to inspire different works. Perhaps a game of exquisite corpses?

“We don’t have a problem with that.” They nod in agreement. “We think we’re in the box, we’re in the world, and the surface of the world comes out under our feet. We accept the two together,” says George.

One brain, is it?

“A double-headed monster. We accept the limitations. And the advantages,” Gilbert chimes in.

There is strength in unity – but isn’t it far braver to be alone against the world? Here I am alone facing the two of you, I say.

“We are alone against the world. Well, there are a lot of lonely artists out there, and we don’t have to be part of that. Don’t you think, George?”

We talk about the frenzy the media stirs up with its headlines, the mob mentalities that override individual morals. “Herd instinct. The media controls the herd instinct…with milk,” jests George, “We have a miniature herd instinct of just two.”

©GILBERT & GEORGE Bloody Naked, 1996 mixed media 89 x 200 inches 226.1 x 508 cm Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

G&G have filled a section of their library with the writings of theosophists. Recently they drew upon the works of Lord Dowding who communicated with dead pilots from WW2 and wrote some fascinating accounts of ‘messages’ he received from his psychic explorations.

Did they believe in an afterlife?

George shakes his head no, “We do believe in the real afterlife. We say my ‘late aunt’ or ‘late uncle’, but nobody says the late Van Gogh, or the late Charles Dickens, because they are not completely dead, and still available to us.”

“We like the spirit of photographs and buildings, of trees,” Gilbert echoed, “The past is there all the time; the brain keeps everything – [We like] a sense of leaving something behind: A living culture. No, we don’t need another life. One’s enough.”

You put yourself in your art, I said. Is that a cult of personality you’ve developed for posterity? Van Gogh didn’t place himself peeking out from his haystacks.

“He did in his own way. His spirit. Every haystack in the country is the same, only his haystack means something,” George clarified.

“It’s his suffering. He was a religious maniac, sexual, twisted in some ways,” Gilbert adds.

But it’s Van Gogh’s hand. And you don’t believe in intervening with your hand, I say. He suffered, but didn’t do it for the public.

“We started out as living sculptures,” Gilbert continued. “It’s us saying that we suffer, we are in love.”

“We are a sex beast, we are leaving ideas behind,” grinned George. “To whatever person you leave a letter to, you always sign your name. These are visual love letters.”

Greek sculptures have no signatures. People might not know the history of your personas two hundred years from now. How will they stand up, I ask.

“[Greek sculptures] are artifacts,” corrected George.

“They will still know how we look like,” said Gilbert optimistically.

They will judge you based on what you look like, I offer with a grin, gesturing at the works around us, their haunting faces peering at us from all sides.

“What a horrible thing to be doing,” said George deadpan.

©GILBERT & GEORGE Brick Lane, 2004 mixed media 99.21 x 147.64 inches 252 x 375 cm Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

They have changed over their 40 years working together. You have had an impact, I say.

“I am sure we did,” said George. “We have evolved,” concurred the double-headed beast.

Did being queer and English strengthen their bond? George answered, “We are not so keen on the common word gay, which is stolen from Eighteenth century prostitutes in London, the gay ladies – because they had a lot of colours.”

“And homosexual is a quasi-medical term from Hungary, used to put people in prison,” claimed Gilbert.

Though they recognize the need for minority groups seeking a platform to express their views, G&G do not feel a need for that syntax in defining their own work. It’s not for them they say.

“Sex is important,” they readily agree. Then, after a pause, Gilbert archly adds, “Even in the art world, we realized art critics are all closet homophobes.”

“Especially the educated ones,” added George with a hint of mischief.

Have they noticed an evolution in that thinking? “Yes, people won’t throw tea at you in cafes now – yes, we remember that…”

©GILBERT & GEORGE Haram, 2004 mixed media 74.41 x 88.58 inches 189 x 225 cm Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

For more information:
Gilbert and George ‘London Pictures’ at Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York

Original Sin, By Alex Gross - 2012 -Courtesy of Jonathan Levine Gallery

Corporate brands are quickly assimilated across global cultures and divide the world into consumerist tribes. The more coveted luxury brands elicit elitist loyalties. The Dior painting below is from the series ‘Product Placement‘ in Alex Gross’ recent exhibition, drawing heavily on brands in an exploration of modern global landscapes, with Coca-cola, Fendi, Dior and Chanel prominently featured in his paintings.

Alex Gross, Dior, Product Placement, oil on canvas, 2012 Courtesy of Jonathan Levine gallery

Fashion shoot originally published in US Marie Claire December, 2006 Photographer: Neil Kirk, Fashion editor: Eric Nicholson

Western corporate brands like Coke and Disney had a slight imperial edge in colonizing Asia and the Middle East before their Asian counterparts infiltrated the West with greater infectious speed.  The ubiquity of advertising and its penetration of urban landscapes begs the question whether paid advertising has become part of our subconscious terrain and can therefore be claimed as common cultural property for artistic appropriation.

Alex Gross Product Placement oil on canvas 32 x 34 inches Courtesy of Jonathan Levine gallery

Alex Gross, Fendi, Product Placement, oil on canvas 32 x 34 inches Courtesy of Jonathan Levine gallery

Fashion shoot originally published in US Marie Claire December, 2006 Photographer: Neil Kirk, Fashion editor: Eric Nicholson

Gross’ paintings create a dystopian scenario of disconnected realities with floating references. His product placements do not recontextualize  brands as boldly as Tom Sachs does with his Chanel Guillotine and Prada Toilet, or as Wim Delvoye did when tattooing live pigs with LVMH logos, but they retain the nostalgic retro aesthetic of hand-painted Indian billboards and sultry B-movie posters. They are the absurd confluences of channel-surfed realities.

Prada Toilet ('97) made from original Prada packaging, Chanel Guillotine (Breakfast Nook '98) © Tom Sachs

Wim Delvoye Louise, 2004 Stuffed tattooed pig 23 x 14 x 45 in./9.1 x 5.5 x 17.7 cm Courtesy the artist; Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin, Paris and Miami; and Sperone Westwater Gallery, New York © Wim Delvoye

View more paintings by Alex Gross
Alex Gross’ exhibition ‘Product Placement’ can be viewed at Jonathan Levine gallery.
Jonathan Levine Gallery | 529 West 20th Street, 9th Floor | New York, NY 10011

Venal Muse - Impetus © Mat Collishaw Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Last Meal on Death Row Series, Bernard Amos, 2011, Mat Collishaw, Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Mat Collishaw’s exhibition entitled, Vitacide, references a deceptively innocuous, colourless brand of insecticide, whose Orwellian moniker is formed of the dubious union of ‘vita,’ the etymological Latin root for ‘life,’ and the suffix ‘-cide’ to kill.

The dim-lit gallery at Tanya Bonakdar contains two rows of glass vitrines with specimens of sickly flora, “The Venal Muses,” inspired in part by the syphilitic musings of Baudelaire who in turn was roused by his own putrefaction to write Fleurs de Mal, in praise of decay. The pestilent blossoms that rear out of the mounds of rotting earth appear proudly morbid in Collishaw’s garden of evil. ‘The skies that watched that proud carcass, lax or taut, / Bloom like a flowery mass. / So pungent was the stench my love, you thought, / To swoon away upon the grass…’ [from Carrion]

Carnivorous blooms often mimic carrion to seduce flies. Set behind gothic frames is the speeded up footage of more carnal flesh-eaters, parting their plump petals open into labial deathtraps.

Gomoria © Mat Collishaw Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Venal Muse - Viridor © Mat Collishaw Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

If the eroticism is apparent in these vagina dentatas of the vegetable kingdom, Collishaw’s references offer insight into more punk-gore romanticism like J.G.Ballard’s car-crash porn (Crash), in which the erotic flailing of car-crash victims inspire license for an overly accelerated libidinal drive. Then there is Joris-Karl Huysman’s, À rebours, a 19^th century novel on Des Essientes, an effete dandy’s tyrannical obsession with beauty that evokes a theatricality for exquisite detail similar to Mishima – a writer whose abruptly truncated life makes me recollect another work  by Shanabrook and Georgieva, based on the aesthetics of repulsion, a suicide bomber cast in chocolate.

Last Meal on Death Row Series, Frank Mcfarland, 2011, Mat Collishaw, Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Last Meal on Death Row Series, Gary Miller, 2011, Mat Collishaw, Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Last Meal on Death Row Series, Martin Vegas, 2011, Mat Collishaw, Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Death from too much pleasure may not be the only way to meet a sticky end as religious ecstasy might demonstrate. Collishaw also experiments in optical illusions with a Christ-figure in The Corporeal Audit, and he’s previously played with clever contrivances of zoetropes that seemed to touch upon metaphysical notions of maya, or it may have just deluded. In the second gallery is another whole body of work, Last Meals on Death Row – of Texas inmates’ last requests. Far from being futile attempts at last-minute calorific sustenance, they are reductive measures of human desire: a satisfying meal is a basic unit of corporeal pleasure. Collishaw’s compositions imitate the style of 17^th century Dutch painters, the masters of Vanitas, whose depictions of conspicuous consumption were reminders that one couldn’t take the party to the next life.

Collishaw picked his selection of death row meals from documentation available in books and on the Internet. “I printed out 300 pages of meals and looked at them every night giving each one a rating for interesting selection and tried to find a good cross reference of choices. Most of the executed are black or Mexican so there was a lot of fried chicken and tacos…” The voluptuous illumination adds irony to the inmates’ poignant choice of cheeseburgers and tacos, makes a grand gesture of the lushly resplendent nature morte of chewed chicken, and adds a beatific glow over the penitently Spartan, healthy salad on the menu. All executed, beautifully.

Last Meal on Death Row Series,Sammie Felde Junior, 2011, © Mat Collishaw, Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Last Meal on Death Row Series, Jeffrey Barney, 2011, © Mat Collishaw, Courtesy the artist & Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, NY

Mat Collishaw: Vitacide Tanya Bonakdar 521 West 21st Street New York, NY 10011 12 Jan through 18 Feb, 2012

Detail of a portrait from the Book Of Kings exhibition © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Gladstone Gallery, New York

Shirin Neshat’s new photographic series at Gladstone Gallery in New York, The Book of Kings, is named after an ancient epic, the Shahnameh, written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi (c. 977 and 1010 AD). The 60,000 verse-epic is a telling of Persia’s historical and mythical past from the creation of the world up until the 7th century Islamic conquest. Prior to the Islamic invasion, Iran (part of Persia then) was ruled largely by adherents of Zoroastrianism, people who worshipped the sun.

Neshat has used black and white portraits of Arab youth, patriots and followers of the current Arab Spring to draw parallels with this ancient work, which also recounts stories of ancient heroic uprisings. Written history often offers revelations on the repetitious nature of these cycles of violence and renewal. Harking back to the style of portraiture in her Women of Allah series, Neshat covers the images with calligraphic texts. Inscribed in her own hand, these passages are taken from the Shahnameh, as well as from contemporary poets.

Bahram, 2012 Ink on LE gelatin silver print; 99 1/9 x 49 1/2 inches (251.8 x 126.4 cm) framed - Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

Detail, Bahram, 2012 Ink on LE gelatin silver print; 99 1/2 x 49 1/2 inches (158.1 x 125.1 cm) framed Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

“In both ancient and contemporary [cultures],” continued Neshat, “we see love, patriotism and violence so interconnected…in essence I found this threat both in historical and mythological levels very interesting…”

Roja, 2012 Ink on LE gelatin silver print; 153 x 114.9 cm framed - Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

The Original Muse for Roja - Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Gladstone Gallery, New York

Detail from Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Gladstone Gallery, New York

Divine Rebellion, 2012 Ink on LE gelatin silver print; 62 x 49 inches (158.1 x 125.1 cm) framed Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

Detail from Divine Rebellion - Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Gladstone Gallery, New York

My House is Burning Down, 2012 Ink on LE gelatin silver print; 47 1/2 x 60 1/2 inches (120.7 x 153 x cm) framed Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

Detail, My House is Burning Down, 2012 Ink on LE gelatin silver print; 47 1/2 x 60 1/2 inches (120.7 x 153 cm) framed Book Of Kings © Shirin Neshat, 2012, Courtesy of Gladstone Gallery, New York

Shirin Neshat “The Book of Kings” Gladstone Gallery – 515 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011
Also see Shirin Neshat’s recently curated show on self portraiture