Gilbert & George Fuckosophy

Neues Museum
Luitpoldstrasse 5
Nüremberg, Germany

Neues Museum presents four works by the duo under the title Gilbert & George. Fuckosophy. This is actually a reunion, since the two artists made a high-profile appearance at Kunsthalle Nürnberg in 1970 as The Singing Sculptures. As there is no document of this event, Gilbert & George selected a film made in 1991 at Sonnabend Gallery in New York that shows the performance much as it took place twenty years earlier in Nuremberg at the opening of the exhibition Das Ding als Objekt. Europäische Objektkunst des 20. Jahrhunderts. By declaring themselves to be sculptures, they made an important contribution to expanding the definition of sculpture. Fuckosophy for All was chosen as the title for this exhibition at Neues Museum. On two walls, wallpaper printed in black and red features hundreds of versions of the F-word. For Gilbert & George, this tirade is a “great experiment in literature”. They see fuckosophy as a “kind of utopia where you can say whatever you want.” Compared with philosophy, fuckosophy is “more democratic,” they stress, “more art for everyone.”