Underpinned by the artists’ ethos ‘Art for All’, The Gilbert & George Centre is a permanent home for Gilbert & George’s artistic legacy, presenting one or two exhibitions a year and providing visitors with the widest possible access to their historical and new pictures, as well as a place for research and scholarship on their practice. Visitors will enter through a secluded cobbled courtyard and into a reception area reminiscent of the artists’ restored Georgian home and studio on nearby Fournier Street. From there, the Centre spans three state-of-the-art exhibition spaces of differing scales and feel, extending over three levels and totalling 280 m².
Our art is the friendship formed between the viewer and the pictures. — Gilbert & George
To mark the inauguration of the Centre, the first exhibition will be THE PARADISICAL PICTURES, shown in London for the first time. In these works the artists inhabit a disquieting vision of a heavenly place imagined as an enchanted forest or overgrown park. The psychedelic landscapes are made weird through the juxtaposition of lurid colours, oversized fruit and rotting flowers.
We will start with THE PARADISICAL PICTURES because we realise that most people think of paradise as ‘the after party’ and we think of this as the pre-cum party. — Gilbert & George
Watch Gilbert & George's welcome to the Centre
