I am standing in London’s East End watching one of the great daily sights of the capital, up there with the Changing of the Guard and the Ceremony of the Keys. Gilbert and George – British art’s premier pair of provocateurs – are ambling down Brick Lane, enveloped in tweed and donning their equally trademark quizzical expressions.
Ageing aside, it is a scene that would have looked identical at any point in the past six decades, since they moved in around the corner, on Fournier Street, in 1968. We make our way inside their gallery, the Gilbert & George Centre, and I am tickled to be told that I am taking part in their creative endeavour.
“Interviews are part of the art,” says George Passmore, 83. “It spreads the message.” Gilbert Prousch, 81, agrees: “We need publicity in some way or another.”
Quite why, after 57 years, they still feel the need to disseminate the G&G gospel is the mystery. They have won the Turner Prize (1986), represented the UK at the Venice Biennale (2005), and become the first British artists to have a retrospective at Tate Modern (2007). Their gloriously titled images – Sperm Eaters; Spit on Shit; Bum Holes – are popular everywhere from Russia to China, and in 2023 they opened their Centre, meaning there is somewhere that their creations will be perpetually on display.
