Gilbert & George Solo exhibition at the Sonnabend Collection Mantova
The relationship between Gilbert & George and the Sonnabend Gallery began in 1971, when the famous The Singing Sculpture inaugurated the gallery's New York venue, marking the beginning of a personal and professional partnership spanning decades. Nearly twenty years after their last major solo exhibition in Italy, the Sonnabend Collection—already home to the historic work Berries (1985), on permanent display in Mantua—presents a focused and conceptually rigorous exhibition at Palazzo della Ragione.This selection of eight emblematic works, all on view in Italy for the first time, traces the key milestones of the artists’ nearly six-decade career while exploring the themes that have shaped their practice: sexuality, politics, religion, urban identity, and mortality.
The exhibition layout is structured around a direct dialogue between their early years and recent production. It opens with the monumental charcoal drawings of The Bar II (1972), a suspended, silent, and melancholy space.
From the 1980s onwards, the focus shifts toward their famous large-scale pictures arranged in vibrant geometric grids, reflecting the microcosm of our world. Through this unmistakable technique, the exhibition explores irreverent and provocative chapters such as Piss off! (2014)—a powerful act of visual rebellion against social conventions—and the heightened urban anxiety of Bale (2013), leading to the ironic and surreal imagery of Beardway (2016), where the artists conceal their own likenesses behind the contemporary obsession with beards, transforming themselves into contemporary pop icons.
