Hayward Gallery, London
From the calling cards of male sex workers to shocking headlines about murder, the octogenarian pair see and incorporate everything, resulting in a show that seethes with life
T
he first picture in Gilbert & George’s retrospective of their art of this century is a portrait of them sitting in a cemetery amid floating drug baggies, their suits bright purple (George) and green (Gilbert) against the grey gravestones. It sums up a stillness, a sadness and a romantic passion that breathes in this show – but you won’t notice it straight away. Instead you’ll be carried along in a rush of cheeky provocations and ludicrous juxtapositions of word and image: a joyous embrace of modern life or even, pardon my French, a jouissance.
The pictures tower and expand in this perfect brutalist setting as if you’re walking through a city of art – a dirty, disreputable city. Ages (2001) is a yellow and red slab almost the scale of a cinema screen on which their blandly smiling faces are surrounded by male sex workers’ adverts: “27 YEARS OLD Latin, and very good looking,” “BLACK GUY 24 Marco. Sexy, horny and waiting,” “SKINHEAD JOE, 26. East End/10 mins Liverpool St. Administers firm service.”
