Gilbert & George 'LONDON PICTURES' Exhibition at The Gilbert & George Centre
CELEBRATING A YEAR OF THE GILBERT & GEORGE CENTRE
‘LONDON PICTURES’
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC FROM 12 APRIL
The ‘LONDON PICTURES’ will be exhibited at The Gilbert & George Centre from 12 April for the duration of 2024
• Presented to coincide with the first anniversary of The Gilbert & George Centre in the UK’s capital, the ‘LONDON PICTURES’ comprise a directory of quotidian urban human behaviour and a moral portrait of our times
• The largest group of pictures created by Gilbert & George, the ‘LONDON PICTURES’ is comprised of 292 pictures whose subject matter is taken from 3,712 newspaper posters, stolen by the artists over a number of of years
• The entire group of ‘LONDON PICTURES’ were last on view globally in Athens, Berlin, Brussels, London, Naples, Hong Kong, New York, Paris and Salzburg in 2012. The Gilbert & George Centre will present 28 pictures, many of which have not been seen in the UK previously
“London is the most important part of our inspiration. It is all that surrounds us. And so we have been able to include all this remarkable surface of thoughts and feeling that we find in these posters…” – Gilbert & George
Celebrating a year of The Gilbert & George Centre in London, the second exhibition to take place will present 28 ‘LONDON PICTURES’. The largest group of pictures created by Gilbert & George, the ‘LONDON PICTURES’ offers both a directory of urban human behaviour and a moral portrait of our times. Over a number of years, Gilbert & George stole the newspaper posters found across London, filtering and sorting the stories they conveyed by subject matter.
More than a decade since they were first unveiled on a global tour, viewing the ‘LONDON PICTURES’ in 2024 will prompt viewers to consider how society has changed and what has remained central to our shared experience.
“From the actuality of these news placards, brutal, blunt, absurd, there resonates a vision of the city as Gilbert & George have known and traversed it, drawing from its energy, dreams and trauma as though from a palate of human feeling, recognised and employed since the beginnings of their art.
The ‘LONDON PICTURES’ derive a great part of their impact and intensity from the directness and unchanged immediacy of the newspaper posters within all but one panel of each picture. In each remaining panel can be found a different image of HM Queen Elizabeth II, taken from coins, her countenance and profile changing with age, dented and worn through the usage of currency. The words ‘IT’S WRITTEN ALL OVER THEM’, beneath the legend ‘A LONDON PICTURE’, propose that these newspaper placards cannot help but reveal what society has become.
The ‘LONDON PICTURES’ seem to comprise a great visual novel, revealing without judgement the ceaseless relay of urban drama, in all its gradations of hope and suffering.” – Michael Bracewell, 2012
The ‘LONDON PICTURES’ will be open to the public from 12 April for the duration of 2024.
