This interview, filmed in 2000
by the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist for an exhibition
at the Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris,
concentrates on the hysteria of the archive and the
collection. Through this document, which does not
fit into any distinct category (documentary, oeuvre,
fiction) we discover the couple's intimate life, the
interior of their London house, a veritable museum
of obsessions. Beyond good and bad, appearances
and things (negatives, books, press cuttings … ),
we finally penetrate the material and method of
these artists, their particular manner of thinking
and categorizing which is itself a philosophy on art
and life.
« Gilbert & George, interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist, reveal and comment on the contents of their work archives with a detachment and self-mockery that make this document hilarious at times. »
—Artforum
Gilbert & George are Gilbert Prousch (born in South Tyrol, Italy, 1943) and George Passmore (born in England, 1942). They live and work in London.
For the last 40 years the artistes have spanned
the international art scene with as much insolence
as elegance. Real living sculptures, they have developed
a repetitive language around recurrent figures
and themes: shit, piss, blood tears, nudity, sperm,
alcohol, drugs.
Theirs is an oeuvre that has radically overturned
conventions and thinking of the period, and which
refers literally to homosexuality, exclusion, social
and religious violence.
