All language subtitles for The.Pilgrimage.Of.Gilbert.And.George.2024.2160p.4K.WEB.x265.10bit.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX].mkvThe.Pilgrimage.Of.Gilbert.And.George.2024.2160p.4K.WEB.x265.10bit.AAC5.1-[YTS.MX]_track3_[eng]

The following programme
contains strong language

and scenes of a sexual nature.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

GEORGE: We are Gilbert and George.

We started with a very simple motto,
"art for all."

Then we went on to have a what
you would call a manifesto.

When somebody says manifesto
we're already very alarmed

'cause we think that sounds like
some revolutionary thing from Russia

and we didn't think
and feel like that.

We just say it's a message from us

to the viewer that we believe in
the art and the life of the artist.

GILBERT: When we made ourself
the ten commandments for us

and the laws of the sculptors.

How to behave to become artist.

How to live and how to better
ourself to be a more complex

human being.

GEORGE: "Art for all"
one of our earliest slogans.

GILBERT: Art for all.

GEORGE: 1969 maybe even earlier.

People always ask how it was that we
came to be two people and one artist

and how we decided that and we
always say that we never decided it.

It was something that came over us.

It's something very mysterious
to us to this day even.

GILBERT: A journey of art is long
so we are walking again and again

and again and we are living it,
this extraordinary life.

GEORGE: We like to think
that everything every day

and every night is past, present
and future all rolled into one.

GILBERT: Our art is not
based on looking outside.

It's all looking inside yourself.

All that vision is inside you
and not outside.

Outside will stay forever
roughly the same,

but in the inner thought
is full of contradiction,

full of complexity like we all are,
human people.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

GEORGE: Well a lot of people ask us

if the pictures are to
do with our mortality.

Which we think is too early for us
to be making pictures about that.

You need bones to live,
to walk to work you need bones,

to go to the gymnasium,
to go jogging you need bones.

It's a bit like, what was the
Max Bygraves' song "You Need Hands."

Well you need bone
for everything to live.

GILBERT: You know the meaning
that is in every dictionary, hmm.

GEORGE: In the entertainment world
corpsing crops up all the time.

People who are in the middle
of a performance and suddenly

they can't think what to do next
or somebody makes them gi-giggle.

It's called dying in America.

But, uh, corpsing is
the English word for it.

GILBERT: But I mean we meant
really like corpses.

We are not walking anymore so
they can see the soles of our shoes.

GEORGE: We like the idea 'cause
that's how we all traverse this
world.

Whether walk in a prison cell
or in a palace.

It-it is all the bottoms of the feet.

GILBERT:
Not only that Dick Whittington,
he came to London walking.

And that's why we
have the soles gold.

GEORGE:
We're doing it for Dick. (LAUGHS)

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

We are the artwork.

And we're there just as everybody's
in a letter they write.

Doesn't matter whether you write to
your mother or to your bank manager

you will always sign it yourself.

These pictures are, are letters
or visual love letters from us

to the viewer.

How is the tea, Gilbert?

It's very nice.
Would you like some cake?

Thank you. Yes.

GILBERT: The vision of our life
is in front of them.

I think that's the most exciting
thing from, that we ever did.

We invented that in 1968 or 69.

We became the art and we are able
to tell the world how we behave,

how we are.

Drunk or not drunk.
They don't know that.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

The totality of their work
when it- when it's seen as a-

as a journey through life will
be well a remarkable portrait.

There's never been, um...

..a more complete documentation
of a relationship.

A relationship between two men...

..ever in any art form at any time.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

NARRATOR: Think of your first view
of the Dolomites, the Italian Alps.

GILBERT: It's fantastic village
where I come from in the Dolomites.

NARRATOR: Think of mountain highways
and a little roadside church.

(BELL TOLLING)

GILBERT: When I was young
I had the dream to be an artist

so I-I moved first to Austria.

Then to Germany.

Then I still felt,
uh, it was not it.

So I moved to London.

And we met on the top floor
of Saint Martins School of Art.

He took an interest in me.
That's about it.

George was from Devon
and he showed me London

and we wanted to
be artists together.

NARRATOR:
Devon and Cornwall are the two
South Western counties of England...

GEORGE: It was just my mother
and my brother.

We were bombed out of Plymouth
in '42, so we ended up in Totnes.

I was interested in art from
being a child and as a teenager

I bought a second-hand book
of Van Gogh's letters.

And that convinced me entirely.

GILBERT: I mean,
we were working class people.

Starting art with nothing.

GEORGE: At Saint Martins,

we were in what was called
the advanced sculpture course.

GILBERT: And it was extraordinary.

They only believe in squares
and triangles and lines.

GEORGE: Form, angle, a little colour.

GILBERT:
And we rejected it in a big way.

Well, I'm now joining
this to this, Charlie...

Hmm.
..in exactly in the position it's in.

NARRATOR:
Anthony Caro, whose work in teaching
had been very influential recently,

one of the first to introduce
colour into his sculptures.

I think we believed
that formalism was a bore.

No-not an intellectual activity.

We thought it was entirely
unintellectual and unemotional.

Meaning was a dirty word.

Lot of sex, death, hope, everything
was something wrong with that.

And that was a big
inspiration to us.

We knew that the art
that the students

and the teachers were creating,
if you took it out of Saint Martins

onto the Charing Cross Road,
it would have no meaning whatsoever.

Form is the servant
of meaning we say.

Form must never be predominant.

We want a human person in front of
you expressing himself being alive.

Being alive is part
of the art of us.

We even went to see the head
of the sculpture department

a year after we left.

The famous sculptor Anthony Caro,
explained our new thoughts and

feelings about art and how it should
be democratic and how we should try

to create an art which had meaning,
uh, and a moral dimension.

And he listened very politely
I must say.

And in the end he said, "Well,
I hope very much that you won't

succeed,
but I rather think you might."

(LAUGHTER)

'Cause he realised
that we were threatening

the prominence of formalism.

We wanted to say something

not about art or shapes or
design or form but about...

GILBERT: Humanity.

Death.
Hope.

Life.
Fear.

Sex.
Money.

Race. Religion.

It was quite exciting

when Saint Martins School of Art
in some ways chucked us out.

We still wanted to be artists.

But we were alone in the streets
of London with nowhere to go.

(SIREN WAILS)

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

NARRATOR: London thou art
the flower of cities all.

Gem of all joy, jasper of jocundity.

GEORGE: Out of all bad luck, always
good luck, comes as we believe,

so that when we left college,
most people would say that we

were down on our luck, 'cause we
hadn't been the goody goody students

who would get
a part time teaching job.

We hadn't been the goody goody
students who had applied for a
grant for a studio.

We had no money, we were very poor.

But that in a way was the best
thing that ever happened to us.

GILBERT: Before we started
to make art together,

we used to do a lot of walking.

GEORGE:
We were walking the streets,

because we were fascinated

by the tube stations and the railways
stations and the police stations.

And the palaces and the pool halls
and the nightclubs and all

the amazing invention of the free
world and the, of the western world.

GILBERT: I mean, the walk became
a sculpture. It became the art.

It was a magic idea to become
the object, the visual art.

GEORGE:
In, in defiance of everything.Yes.

We decided we don't have
to sculpt or paint to do art,

we just
can be ourself and journey through
life with the pilgrim's progress.

We are confronting drunkenness,
we are confronting being too sexy,

we are confronting religion.

We are confronting politics.
And we are still doing that.

GEORGE: I think it's probably true
to say that it's something that came

over us as a whole idea and thought.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

We felt the appearance of
many artists at that time

and traditionally, historically,
alienated huge sections of society.

We didn't want to be the freaky
artists with beards

and strange clothes.

We felt we wanted to be,
to be normal.

Are you OK?
How are you?

Hello.
Morning.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

We tried to sell ourselves.

We went to the ICA (UNCLEAR).

We, we were going to see people

and so we felt we had to dress up.

Double pockets,
double pockets, always so.

And lining inside the trousers?
Yes, lining inside trousers, yes.

Very good.I don't know what
to do with your pockets.

What on earth do you do,
razor blades in the... (LAUGHS)

Not telling. (LAUGHS)

GEORGE: Applying for a job,
you put on a collar and tie.

GILBERT:
And that became our dress code.

I would call it Sunday best.
Never identical.

They are identical.

But it was very important,

because we were trying
to reach these people.

We started out by applying to
every single gallery in London.

Not the good ones, but all of them

to ask if them if they
would like to exhibit our art.

And all of them said no.

GILBERT: We'd just left
Saint Martins School of Art.

And nobody would touch us
in a million year.

GEORGE: We went to every single
gallery even the ones we'd never

heard of just to say that
we'd been to every gallery.

We presented an idea of our
intentions for the future as artists.

And said, you know, we would
like to offer an exhibition.

They all said no.
And we felt enormously proud,

we thought we really
are doing something amazing.

Yeah doing the right thing.
Everybody says no.

We were offering them
full of different ideas.

We went to the Tate
and we said we would like to present

a living sculpture called
a Christmas piece where we'd

already organised with the RSPCA
to borrow animals.

And we, we would recreate
the birth of Jesus in the entrance

of the Tate and we would stand
there as two living figures.

It didn't occur to us that,
that maybe wasn't very right,

we would be Mary
and Joseph in a way.

So of course, uh,
again they turned it down.

GILBERT: The only way to reach
people was to do postal pieces.

We did a lot of different one,
three or 400, uh, postal pieces.

And they all contacted us.
They realised art was fee.

They didn't have to
pay for it anymore.

It came through the door.

GEORGE: We realised what we wanted
to do which was to have a speaking

art to speak directly to the viewer.

To make that human contact
and they felt it in that way.

People wrote back
and things which was extraordinary.

And then we created
the magazine sculpture,

Gilbert the Shit and George the Cunt,

and we felt we should exhibit it
somewhere in London before it was
published.

We, we had no idea who
would like to show it.

We went in to Robert Fraser
Gallery and he came up with a-

Yes, we thought it was the longest
yes in the world we'd ever heard.

Yessss.

It went on for 15 minutes.
It felt it was extraordinary.

He agreed to show
the magazine sculpture.

GILBERT: For only three hours.

GEORGE: It was the most famous
gallery for pop artists.

(LAUGHTER)

It was, it wouldn't been
a gallery for us anyway.

There was no gallery for us
in London at that time.

It didn't, didn't exist.

We took the magazine sculpture under-
underneath our arm to the gallery.

GILBERT: And that was it.

When we did Gilbert the Shit
and George the Cunt,

it was
the first time that we confronted
our public and humiliated ourselves.

And we realised that is
enormous freedom in that.

We are able to free ourself
and nobody's able to...

They are not able to attack
you after that.

After that, we were able to squeeze
into a lot of different places.

But we didn't have a studio.

NARRATOR: Fournier Street.

Built by the Huguenots in 1724.

GILBERT: We first moved into
Fournier Street, because it was
cheap.

We were told it was
the cheapest place in London.

And it was true you could hire
any floor of any building.

Whether it was the basement or
the attic or the first floor.

They were always £12 a month.

And we could just about afford that.

GILBERT: Not only that, the streets
of London, East End of London,

it is yellow light, awesomely magic.
(SUNDAY BELLS TOLLING)

And we started to love
the street ourself,

because all this 18th century house

and there are some of the most
beautiful houses in London probably.

JULIAN: Spitalfields, Shoreditch

was, when they first
moved there in 1967,

really, really run-down poor area.
I mean it was a slum.

Gilbert and George, they'd both
come from working class backgrounds.

So they weren't fearful of
living somewhere like that.

You know, as perhaps more
middle-class artists probably

would've gone and lived
in Chelsea or Kensington.

Gilbert and George were
never interested in that.

You know they're just interested
in real life.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

This area was derelict
for a long time.

People wouldn't come here.

I mean, a lot of people,
especially from the city,

they used to open my door
and go "Ah."

You know, they really did.

But I didn't care.

You know, people used to say
to me, "How do you live here?"

"What do you mean,
'How do I live here?' I love it."

And when I hear people say it
was scary, it makes me quite angry.

Spitalfields was
a fruit and veg market.

Then opposite,
you had the flower market.

All the customers were lovely.

You never had to watch
your back ever, ever, ever.

GEORGE: It was very interesting.

For 15 years all the journalists
used to say,

"Why don't you move to
a nicer part of London?"

And for the last 50 years, they're
saying, "Oh it's become too trendy.
Isn't it time you moved on?"

So they always wanted us to leave.

I mean, we always felt that it
was dangerous, it was rough, it
was romantic.

We used to take a taxi. Invariably,
the taxi driver in the West End,

if we said we we're going
Fournier Street, they would say,

"What do you wanna
go there for, guv?"

When they did arrive,
they would pull up outside number 12

and look around and say,
"When's this lot coming down then?"

Not will it come down,
when will it come down.

So it was an exciting
part of London to be in.

I was born five minutes from here.

Loved it, loved,
I had a lovely upbringing.

1979, my husband and brother
came to me and said,

"We want a pub
in Commercial Street."

I said, "Well don't look at me.
I don't want a pub."

(LAUGHS) Anyway, they said,
"Just come and see it."

So I came one lunchtime
and I walked in the saloon bar

and fell immediately in love
with it.

I didn't know if it was god
made me love it, I don't know.

Been in here 45 year.

I knew Gilbert and George were
artists, but I used to think

how cool they- They reminded me
of my father, because my father

and most East Enders never went
out with a whistle or flute.

They always had their suit,
shirt and tie.

I love getting up in the morning.

I'm down here no later than six.

Open my doors, you know,

some mornings
I have coffee with G&G.

They're so interesting.
Even early in the morning.

I think Gilbert and George,
although they're not East Enders,

they remind me of East Enders.

They've got that sa- same heart.

There's a photo behind the bar.

That might have been my 50th
which was nearly 30 years ago.

One thing about 'em,
they never let me down.

If I'm doing something special,
they'll always turn up.

(SOLEMN MUSIC)

GEORGE: Well we liked the world.

It was a complete contrast
to where we'd grown up.

We liked this dirty, urban,
crazy world filled with danger.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

GILBERT: In 1970, and 80,

all the tramps were walking
up and down the street.

GEORGE: There were more
tramps than non-tramps

and we felt they had a charm
and they had a being.

It was just sort of community
in a way these, these lost souls.

None of those people
are alive anymore.

And they were replaced by a
younger group of similarly

disenfranchised, one could say,
and that's the drug addicts.

But they also have their own
charm in, in a way.

And they're not, not entirely
separate from us, either.

It feels a certain kinship with us.

A month or so ago, we were
walking down Whitechapel,

and one was coming along
the pavement towards us

looking very tattered and
their trousers were torn.

There was some horrible brown blood
or something come out of one ear.

And as he came slightly nearer to us
he recognised us.

And said, commenting on our art,

he said, (WITH ACCENT)
"I like the shit ones best."

We laughed and then we cried.
Yeah, us both.

JAY: They work in, in Spitalfields
based in Fournier Street.

Brick Lane is around the corner.

They very rarely stray from
that environment and their-

of their immediate neighbourhood.

They are able to treat
their daily walk as some

kind of pilgrimage to what is going
on around them and it's out of the-

whether it's detritus on the streets
or graffiti they see on the wall,

or the leaves of the trees
around them

that they're able to
make their pictures

and they absolutely
treasure the rich complexity

of the area and its changing history
over the years.

GILBERT: The Corpsing Picture came
about because we were walking every

night towards dinner.

And what did we see
every single day? Bones.

GEORGE:
And we realised it was all because
the young people who were heading

for Hoxton or Brick Lane in the
evening don't want to have dinner.

They don't want to sit
up like a silly grown up.

They hop from pub to club
to friend's house.

And so they eat on the run.

Which means they leave bones behind.

But that's not why
we made the pictures.

And then when they've all gone home
and Brick Lane is closed down,

somebody comes into the district
and that is the foxes.

Walking in from Essex.
How long does it take 'em?

And they're coming in for the bones.

But that's not why
we made the pictures.

And then the foxes
have had their dinner

and they go home
back to the country.

And the sun comes out

and suddenly huge flocks of seagulls
fly in from the coast.

How long does it take 'em to fly in?

And they're coming in for the bones.

But that's not why
we made the pictures.

You know, they could've
been anywhere.

I mean, their work would've
been different, actually,

and they probably
would've been different

if they had been in a different
neighbourhood of London.

Most of the images in their work
are derived from things

that are, you know, in their
street or around the corner.

GILBERT: Once we'd opened
the door at 12 Fournier Street,

what is in front of us?

Oh, a dead bone on the street.

Oh, a dead leaf on the street.
You know.

So it's already s-
We don't have to think,

we just look and feel what could
be part of our new vision.

The most exciting or second
most exciting thing is life is

the creative process.

And that, that for us is
extraordinarily thrilling,

slightly sexual, very intellectual,
very mental as well.

We are quite excited because
it feels really like we are dead

bodies in a basket and that's quite,
uh, powerful in some way.

This, uh, going near to death.

With The Corpsing Pictures,
a number of people found

that direct engagement with their
own mortality quite disturbing,

not provocative, but disturbing.

And their work has often,
um, been considered disturbing.

So, I don't think that's too
different from other series

that they've made.

But it, it definitely shows
that right up into the,

the most recent body of work
they're still, um,

finding different ways
to transport people.

GEORGE: We were walking
the streets of London.

We were wandering
near Euston station.

We found the little old shop selling

all of the things that people leave
behind in the flat when they leave.

All the unwanted bits and pieces.

And we found a copy of a gramophone
record with the title,

Underneath the Arches.

We didn't know what the song was,
but we knew what the words meant.

Because we were living in
the East End where people

were living underneath the arches.

Damaged people from the First
World War, the Second World War.

People damaged
by pre-decriminalisation sex laws.

The idea of a complicated
extraordinary life

is part of how we make our pictures,
how we create our pictures.

And we were amazed by the simplicity

and complicatedness of the song
which was very simple.

The words were,

# The Ritz I never sigh for

# The Carlton they can keep

# There is only one place that I know

BOTH: # And that is where I sleep

# Underneath the arches

# I dream my dreams away

# Underneath the arches

# On cobblestone we lay

# Every night you'll find me

(FROM OLD FOOTAGE)
# Tired out and worn

# Happy when the daylight

# Comes creeping... #

And there in the moment
we thought we'd got it.

We'd got a key to something.

GILBERT: First we only
did it for five minutes

then we realise that we could
actually do it much longer, no?

To create a, a repetition and to
make them to transfix the public

towards the sculpture, no?

We are not able to move,
like in a trance.

(INDISTINCT SINGING)

GEORGE: I think people were, were
more bemused than anything else.

Living sculptures actually occupy
a unique place, uh, in our history

where real life and artistic form
somehow converge perhaps into one.

They moved like automata.

They would do it all day
and they would do it

whether there was anybody there
or not.

I was so fascinated, I used to sneak
up the stairs, creep up the stairs,

and look in, and they were indeed
doing it to an empty gallery.

They were obsessive.

GILBERT:
We did it for eight hours non-stop.

It was extraordinary
mental piece of work.

We managed to remove us
ourself from the public

by putting on the
multi-coloured heads.

It is powders that you
put on top of Vaseline, no?

You really become the visual art.

INTERVIEWER:
Is every moment of your day art?

Are you sculpturing or
sculpting continuously?

More or less, yes.Yes.

You don't take breaks
for living at all?

No, the whole living
is one bit sculpture.

# There's only one place
that I know... #

GILBERT: We didn't need canvases.
We didn't need metal.

It was the beginning of the
realisation that everything

that come to us could be
described of our vision of art.

And that was the biggest success.

BOTH: # Pavement is my pillow

I was very taken by the fact
that artists could be the art.

And the very democratic way in which
they engaged with their audience.

I found utterly radical.

GEORGE: We thought we were very,
very sophisticated to have this

new belief in art having
a meaning for people's lives.

Didn't matter where they live
in the world, what their education

or religious background,
that we can speak to people.

GILBERT: And we had
to dry-clean our suits.

(LAUGHS)
Because they became the objects.

Very, very slowly become,
we became quite known

and was in a big article
in the Sunday Times.

We met Konrad Fischer at the ICA.
And he came out to us and said,

"You do something with
me in Dusseldorf, huh?"

And he was, at the time, the most
famous gallery for young artists.

In the world.

So we did the living sculpture
in Dusseldorf.

Then later on, we were doing
the singing sculpture in Brussels.

At the end of the evening, what
we thought was a little old lady,

came up to us and said, "My name
is Ileana Sonnabend and I'm opening

a gallery in New York and I want
you to be the first exhibition."

And that was the most famous
North American modern gallery

for our generation.

We took the singing sculpture
to New York.

And that Saturday was the first time

it opened in the downtown
disreputable district.

And all, all the people
had walked down to this

amazing new gallery district.

Their first show in New York
was a tremendous success.

There were people coming in
and it was so crowded.

Uh... (LAUGHS) And um...

you know everybody was singing
the song in the street even.

(LAUGHS)

GEORGE: Warhol was there. All of the
American artists were very friendly.

All came up and invited us for
lunch or for dinner or for drinks.

GILBERT: Rauschenberg
actually cooked for us.

And he was a very good cook.

INTERVIEWER: Obviously repetition is
key.GILBERT: Oh, yes.GEORGE: Yes.

Are you aware of communication
between yourselves

and the onlookers?Oh, yes.

Oh yes.
Uh, quite a lot of communication.

(LAUGHS)A lot- (LAUGHS)

Konrad Fischer said, do something
to leave behind in my art gallery

because the living sculpture
you couldn't leave behind.

So we started to do
these big drawings.

We tried to make the drawings
like they already existed, huh.

They looked like 200
to 300 years old, no.

But still us in it.

The first sculpture we did was
called, "Walking, Viewing, Relaxing."

And that was because
we knew how to walk,

we knew how to view
and we knew how to relax.

Yeah, so we put up these three
drawings in a gallery

and at the
end of the evening Konrad Fischer
said to us, "I've sold them all.

£1,000."

We, we only set the sum of £1,000,

'cause it was the largest sum
we could think of.(LAUGHS)

Because, obviously,
nobody's going to buy it,

so it might as well have a
grand price, but he did sell it.
Extraordinary.

That's it, and for the first
time in our life we had money.

(GLASSES CLINKING)

Then we began the drinking sculptures
immediately.Day and night.

(SLURRING) This is a lot of
bloody bollocks. (LAUGHS)

(SLURRING)
He's just a silly old queen.

Everything was going on
at the same time.

We had a show in New York.

In Tokyo, Germany.

Italy, Brussel.

So we were global artists.

We took over the whole
Hayward Gallery.

I don't know how happy
the other artists were, but anyway.

There were two huge
charcoal-on-paper sculptures,

the showpiece one
and the showpiece two.

We had to borrow a studio
somewhere to do them, I think.

They were an enormous task to do.
It was quite exciting.

We managed to create an amazing
atmosphere and was in the jungle.

We never wanted to go
near the other artists.

We felt they, they did
a different kind of art,

so we kept ourself to ourself.

And I think that was the success.
Yes.

So we didn't feel the nagging
that was going around us.

NARRATOR: George and Gilbert
or Gilbert and George.

Their presence attracts large
crowds to the art gallery of
New South Wales.

GILBERT: We were taken up
by a lot of these galleries.

We thought we are it.
We are doing whatever we want

because our life was the most
important part of our art, no.

We are speaking different
than the other artists.

They tried to claim us,
but we are outsiders.

GEORGE: We still feel that every day.

We feel never part of
the world out there.

We made ourself different.

Artists have to be outsiders.

Gilbert and George
have been incredibly

conscious of trying to
maintain that position.

It's about them, you know,
and their vision.

It's almost kind of monk-like,
I always think,

just cutting yourself off
really from all of that

kind of rubbish that we have
to do in our lives. (LAUGHS)

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

(CHILDREN CHATTERING)

GEORGE: I think becoming artists
in London we felt we had to get rid

of a lot of things and those things
were mostly to do with nature.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

As we're both country bumpkins,
we only knew how to express

ourselves through branches and
roots and trees and landscapes.

And we wanted to lose all of that.

And we were very nervous that
people loved the charcoal-on-paper

sculptures for what
they were physically.

They adore this big sheets
of crinkly paper.

And we felt that they weren't
listening or looking to see

what the art works were
actually saying to them.

GILBERT: We wanted to go away from
art made with a pencil or a brush.

We wanted to get ready for our first
titled pictures and then the dirty

words pictures where we would lose
all trace of contact with nature.

We are interested a way
of making art that is only

the power of the image is important,
not the material.

The material is cheap only,
the message is important.

Even how to make art was different.

Nobody did photographic images
to make them speak like modern art.

They did all painting,
express themselves with paint

and we never wanted that.

We thought, we are able to speak
much better with this new form of
image.

Gilbert and George use photography

because they'd feel there's
no sort of moral superiority

in oil on canvas and that,
if you like, the most efficient way

of making pictures, depicting
the world, is a photograph.

Of course, uh, photography does
this incredibly well and they,

if you like, use photography
on a very, very grand scale

to make great paintings.

GEORGE:
We always used the term "negative"

describing the base of our pictures,
because we don't take photographs, we
take a negative.

When you press the button on the
camera, you are creating a negative.

We don't know what we're doing
when we start making our pictures.

We don't even want to know.

We don't have an idea what to do.

We only have some kind of
dream that is taking over.

We believe in other forces
outside of ourselves.

And a force of culture within
the person of, of all the books

we've read or haven't read, all the
movies we've seen or haven't seen.

All of life's experience
which we have or not experienced.

And they have to play into the
moment when we make that picture.

But the Dirty Words, we were able
to do a different kind of art.

But everything was there
ready for those kind of pictures.

(BROODING SYNTHETIC MUSIC)

We don't look for it,
it's just in front of us.

Every subject. We never
search for it, it's just there.

Queer, shit, cunt. Bastard, cunt.

The dirty words, if you look back,

they create this extraordinary
feeling of the anarchy that was

going on in England.

And this aggression that
was inside a lot of people.

And we didn't write
those words on the walls.

We don't swear.

And, and so we were able to
create this, uh, subconscious

landscape that is very, very,
very powerful and is of that time.

We just went all over finding
all the single words

that led the way into the
rest of the subject matter.

And we saw these big parties
going on at Notting Hill Carnival.

We came back and created,
uh, Dirty Word.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

Amazing to see it
after all this time.

That's Commercial Street there.
Near the top of Fournier Street.

It's the gents lavatories there.

It's very good, because we created
this immediate atmosphere, no?

This gloomy atmosphere.

At that time,
they were done faster than now.

The new pieces are
more complex to make.

I remember when we created
the Dirty Words pictures,

all of our friends and supporters
thought that we'd gone over the top.

That we were being childish.

Why would you make works, works
of art with just dirty words in.

And then the years rolled on
and we had the idea to-

We showed them all together
in the Serpentine Gallery.

27 pictures.

All together for the first time.

Many of the people who had been
against the pictures were there

saying, "It's marvellous.

Absolutely won-
It's extraordinary. Wonderful."

I said, "But don't you
remember you were a little bit

suspicious of-" "Oh, no, no,
we've always loved them."

Which was very good, 'cause it
proves what we always believed,

that the pictures stay the same

and the world changes
to accommodate them.

I think we used the word "queer"
for the Dirty Words pictures,

because it was one of the words
you can find written on walls.

It was just another of those words.

We never felt the divisionism
of that time where people

thought of gay and straight.

We just thought life
is complicated and marvellous

and you don't have to settle down to
one particular ideology in that way.

GILBERT: It was provocative.

And we wanted to bring it forward,
open it up in front of people

and make it actually
an artwork out of it.

Provocative yes, but it's also
true that people often tell us

about how important a picture
from that time was for them

for some personal reason.

So w-we had all this critics
and all the people against us.

They wouldn't go near our art.

Mostly here in England.

Cunt and queer.

These were words that
were completely taboo

and still are to some extent.

So the Dirty Words pictures
were incredibly controversial,

and the art world, the art critics

were really hostile
to Gilbert and George.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

GILBERT:
In the end we managed to succeed.

GEORGE: We've had a lot of help
from our enemies.

They're still around.

Intolerance towards art and artists
and writers and thinkers

and musicians and poets
has always been there, yeah.

If you try to write an unusual poem,
you'll find

people have a problem with it
immediately. Immediately.

The whole history of culture
is written with opposition.

There were quite a lot of people
against us when we did all this art.

How many great books took three years
to get it through to the publishers?

They were never quite sure of it.

Some of the greatest books
of all time.

They were all critical in some way,
because it was something new.

We are doing an art that visually
how it looked like and what we're

saying the art is part of
us being human.

We always believed that art or
culture is thinking about what

we're going to do with
the rest of our lives.

People read books, listen to music,

read poetry to decide
how tomorrow will be.

And we think that
our form is culture.

The great force of culture
of the free world.

And they are going into
our exhibitions to look what

they feel, uh, in front
of one of our pictures.

Are thy pro, are they against,
do they leave, don't they leave?

But any work it is a revolution
in the- in art, in some way.

Even if they say, "What the
hell am I supposed to think?"

That's already a very good start.

Their exhibitions,
I mean, it's like breath-taking.

My husband didn't like
going to these exhibitions

and I took him once to the Tate.

He went, "They're geniuses.

I'm gonna come more often with ya."

I mean, it brought him into art.

Gilbert and George, they're like
ordinary people. But they're not.

GEORGE: We wrote this text.

We want our art to bring out
the bigot from inside the liberal

and conversely, to bring out
the liberal from inside the bigot.

GILBERT: We didn't go in
the city to take images.

We did our images here
around Brick Lane.

GEORGE: I think we just wanted
young people in the pictures.

They used to walk up and down
Fournier Street,

so we just went out and asked them

if they would like
to be photographed.

We weren't thinking politically
or do with pop music or culture.

Not at all. Just other young people.

We had a problem because of
the so-called liberal left,

were quite anti-us.
I don't know why.

When they wrote in the newspapers,

said this was a racist picture
we had to telephone in to say,

"Did you realise that the
person in the middle is obviously

an Asian person with long hair
and bell-bottomed trousers?"

We said, "Would you mind getting
a copy of it and would you look?

I'll hang on the line."

They were extremely embarrassed
and they just said one of them

was an Asian, another one was
quite obviously a tramp, yeah?

One maybe you could say
was a skinhead, just.

They complaining like we called all
these ordinary people "Four Knights"

and they were all anti that.

I have no idea why, because
they were just lower class boys.

They look aggressive, no, because
they are black and white and red.

They are forceful images

of living experiences
that we had around here.

We think the misunderstand
is a problem of class.

Because there were these middle
class people writing reviews

in posh newspapers saying why are
Gilbert and George using these yobs,

these young East End thugs?

Well, we weren't using yobs
or East End thugs.

We were using human persons.

We don't believe that every person

who doesn't have such a good
education as that reviewer

should immediately be branded
as something inferior.

The liberal establishment
if you like of the art world,

uh, just found them too much.

They weren't acceptable
and I think that was, um,

a challenge for Gilbert and George.

But also they recognised the
importance of breaking down

this very stifling, cliquey,
nepotistic world

of art criticism and the art world.

(COUNTDOWN BEEPING)

We had to find our own visual
language and that has evolved

together with the meanings
as our concerns change and evolve.

So really, our pictures as a whole
are not a stylistic development,

they're a human development
and evolution of a life.

You can imagine at that time
that any art that addressed

the vast general public was
regarded as an embarrassment almost.

It had to be just for the elite few.

We are trying to make art
that we can take out in the street

not for the specialised people,
for every taxi driver, for, uh,

every drug addict.

The process of making them was,
yeah, immensely complicated.

It was all hand done.

Gilbert and George were very
clever in sort of developing this

way of working where everything is
cut into these manageable squares.

GEORGE: It's a kind of discipline.

We can't compose the picture
entirely as we want,

because of the grids and,
and we rather like that.

GILBERT:
And it is our signature in some way.

People can realise it's one
of our pictures even a mile away

without seeing the subject.

We're not trained as picture makers,

so we started it with
just black and white,

because the negative
is black and white.

We had to teach ourself
how to make them.

There was no system out there.

So we invented ways of making art.

First we take images.

For three or four months,
we take images that speak to us

and our time, hmm?

And then we're making a composition

and a design
how the picture should be.

And they're just layers.

When we were actually
making the pictures,

all of the panels were blank.

We just put one image on top of
each other until it is finished, no?

So having shot the first image in

and actually printed that on to it
although we can't see it,

the paper will still be white.

We have to make a positive image
of that figure to put over it

in order to expose
the next subject next to it.

We had to project it on the wall.

All in bits, one, two, three,
four, five.

Like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 layers
on top of each other.

We were like one year
in the darkroom day and night.

It was very, very complicated.

Yes, we had to be very straight.
(LAUGHS)

You had to be, you know, top
and bottom and left and right.

And be very strict.

And after even the colouration
was all done separate, no?

But the end result was always
the most important part of it.

We start with the palest
colour first.

Yes, and so what is not
going to have that colour

is going to be protected with
this gum that we are painting on.

So the main figure could be flesh
colour and this would remain white.

We go through all the colours
and one day they're all finished.

Unlike children or artists
or amateur painters,

we didn't start with a box
of crayons or coloured pencils.

We didn't have any colour.
We had a black-

Black and white.
Black and white.

Yeah, and it took us four years
to find red.

Because it felt that it
was connected with anger,

to do with love, to do with blood,
to do with danger,

to do with communism,
to do with fear.

And we felt we could
use red in different ways

to add to the black and white.

In 1980, we started to have these
four, five different colours.

Now blue, yellow and green.

Our colours are based
on the meanings,

like we always used to say
the yellow had a sophistication.

And like red is anger more
and blue is more,

I don't know like, eternity.

We had this amazing piece
in the Tate Britain.

Drunk with God.

And not a lot of artists have done
pictures on the subject of God, have
they?

We like to include religion in
the pictures and church and faith.

Not to be the superior artists
who don't bother with that.

Even when I've been running away
from religion for five years.

(LAUGHS)

I mean, I was brought up
a Catholic, no?

And it took me a long time
to get rid of it.

Art school did a good job for me.
(LAUGHS)

To get rid of that.

I like to be free.

We just didn't want to be
the sophisticated atheist common

blind modern artist.

It'd be silly to pretend that
there's no such thing as god

and no such thing as an afterlife

when there are so many
people talking about it

and writing books and movies
and poems about it.

It would be daft to ignore that.

All the church are standing
in front of you every single day

if you like it or not, hmm?

We all come out of
an amazing tradition.

We would say ourselves
that we're probably

Greco Romano Judeo Christian,

spiritualistic, voodoo secularists
roughly speaking.

But that's all part of the amazing
group of people and feelings.

I see them
as being in a tradition of art which

deals with important human concerns.

It's disturbing.

And I happen to hold the view
that one of the functions of art

is to disturb.

Certainly, I think their art
touches often on deep psychological
elements.

Human beings are
religious creatures.

They have always invented
religions for themselves.

They need to worship something.
It's very fundamental.

And if an artist can successfully
connect his art to

this religious impulse, then
he makes his art more powerful.

GEORGE: We all said the new world
was not created by the policemen,

it wasn't created by the vicar,

it was created by the music
and the novels

and the pictures and the theatre
and the ballet and the opera.

They made us safe and free.

We wouldn't say that our art
is our religion,

because we believe that
religion is the enemy.

The vicar has been the enemy.

Art has been uninvolved in, uh,
depicting God for 1,000 years.

Collaborators...Yes.
..we call them.

(RHYTHMIC BEATS)

When we did the banners, uh,
one of them said ban religion.

Then there was a mysterious knock
at our front door.

And there was an elderly clergyman
and he said,

"I'm awfully sorry to trouble you.

I don't want to disturb you
or intrude in any way.

I just want to tell you I saw that
thing you, you- ban religion, is it?

I think it's marvellous,
absolutely marvellous."

We thanked him and we said perhaps he
could tell us a little why he was so
pleased for it.

He said, "Oh it's really simple,"
he said.

"I have my congregation,
it's nearly 40 years now.

All very nice people.

The thing is they come to church on
Sunday 'cause they're all religious

and I don't really want them
to be religious.

I want them to be good."

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

(SIREN WAILS)

You knew everyone in Brick Lane.

Brick Lane was all Indians,
you knew everyone down there.

I was going to get my husband's
curry. I don't eat curry.

And, you know,
I used to sit on the chair

and I'd have a glass of champagne.

Eat a whole box of After Eights
while I was waiting for Den's curry.

GEORGE: When we moved there first,
it was Yiddish speaking.

Some Polish speaking,
Russian speaking.

Then it became Maltese,

then it became Somali, then the
Bangladeshi and now it's city boys.

We've seen them,
the synagogue turn into a mosque.

We've seen the Jewish off licence
turn into a Hindi music centre.

We even see the gents public
lavatories on Whitechapel

turn into an Indian restaurant.

Some young, young friends
were recommending it to us.

They said it's very good food
and the service is fantastic.

And it's eat in or take away.
I said it always was. (LAUGHTER)

(DISCO MUSIC)

It was exciting time to be in London

and to be gay in London
in the early 1980s.

There was a, you know,

a real sense that there were you
know there was a kind of movement

happening and things
were opening up.

It was also a very,
very small world.

Everybody kind of knew each other.

David Robilliard was this, uh,

amazing kind of, um, hyper poet.

I am angry.

David was in our film,
The World With Gilbert And George.

I am angry.

David says, "I am angry,
I am angry."I am angry.

We told him
he must smile at the same time.

I am angry.

I am angry.

One night in the London
Apprentice he said to me,

"Oh, would you like
to do some modelling

for these artists,
Gilbert and George?"

Who I didn't know
a great deal about.

I did, had heard of them.

Um, but I didn't
know much about them.

So I thought, well, yeah sure.

I was a student at the time
and I think, you know,

it was £20 was being offered.

Gilbert and George were doing
these huge big pictures with

maybe 15, 20 young men.

So, um, yeah, they needed lots of
people to come and model for them.

So they had quite a system going,
you know.

We wanted to fill the picture
with young people.

So we put one, two, three, four,
five, six, seven in the picture

and we thought that's not enough.

We want some more,
if we have more in front,

then we'll hide them,
so we'll have them kneeling down.

And they can still see.

That wasn't enough so we put
one, two, three, four, five,

six in the sky.

So it's loaded down
with youth and hope.

I went into the studio at the back
of Gilbert and George's house

and I met them.

Then they took lots of photos
and we chatted.

I was a film student
just graduating, I think,

from the Royal College of Art

and, uh, while they
were taking pictures,

just sort of said to them, "Well,
seeing as you've photographed me,

how about I film you?"

After I'd done the modelling,
there was an opening of a-

of the exhibition and there was
a huge great big picture entitled

"See", which, um, I was really
quite sort of overwhelmed by.

Gilbert and George lying at my feet

and these two big eyes
and being called See

seemed so kind of appropriate

seeing as I had by that point
already embarked on

potentially making a film
about them.

But I never had a kind
of end date or a, you know,

it wasn't a sort of commissioned
film or anything.

So, I was just scrabbling together
to get whatever money I could

with my little camera (LAUGHS)
to film what I could, you know.

And it just went on
like that for 17 years.

I am Gilbert.

And I am George.

We are...

Gilbert.And George.

I was just very happy
to listen to them, really.

In a way, I didn't really want the
film to come to an end, actually.
(LAUGHS)

GILBERT: And then AIDS came along.

NARRATOR: AIDS is new, and at
the present rate of progress,

there are ten times as many men
with AIDS every two years.

GILBERT: A lot of our friends died.

GEORGE: We were surrounded
by young, younger friends

who were diagnosed with AIDS.

David, David Robilliard...

..and Andrew Heard,

who was an artist just
started to make his own pictures.

GEORGE: When I filmed
"The World of Gilbert and George,"

Andrew says repeatedly,
"I am a young man, I am a young man."

I am a young man.

And of course he always was a young
man, he never will be anything else.

So many in New York died,
so many people in Europe.

Was a, a huge nightmare,
and a living nightmare.

They were there and
they were not there.

Gilbert and George
wanted to do their bit

in terms of raising money
to help people.

So they did the For AIDS show
in 1989

where all the proceeds
went to an AIDS charity.

It was quite a big exhibition,
big show.

GILBERT: We had this idea maybe
we could make a group of pictures.

GEORGE: Something.

Something towards
trying to find a cure.

And we even arranged a big dinner
and the whole art world...

GEORGE: Came in from all,
all over the world for it.

GILBERT: In 1975 to 1980, 85,
we did many pieces to do with death.

Death, Hope, Life, Fear
and Death Phase and Body Life.

Dead Heads.
Dead Head, Dead Bored.

But when they started to die,
we stopped.

We never mentioned that word again,
in fact.

I think it is very, very clear
in our pictures without having

to be spelt out as it used to be.

We think even
the New Horny pictures we did

are like huge Lutyen cemeteries
on the Somme or something.

All of those boys
advertising the magazines.

It is like tombstones, the age and
there were a little story what they
did.

One day all of them will be dead and
then it will be like a huge memorial
to those people.

GEORGE: A lot of people
think that we create an art

in the East End of London

and maybe it's a little bit to
do with the East End of London

or we're artists like we are,
because of the East End of London.

But when we wake up in the morning,

we always feel we wake up
in the world.

I never feel we wake up in
Spitalfields or wake up in
Fournier Street.

We always feel that we're in
the world every single moment.

We get up in the mornings
and buy a newspaper.

And before going for dinner,
we watch the television news.

And we have a very clear feeling

of the world turning
beneath our feet around.

And the the pain with which it turns

and the joy with
which it turns as well.

And all, all of that is what
we're thinking, feeling, hoping,

dreading, loving about.

They were organising a
big exhibition in Moscow.

It was a real coup to get this
agreed by the Russian authorities

and to have got the main
kind of art gallery in Moscow

to host the exhibition.

The motto was always, "art for all,"

so we thought let's try
out Moscow, test our theory.

We spent nearly all our money
doing it.

It was a real adventure to drop
this big shows

in the middle of
a communist country, hmm?

Russia was nearly
totally collapsing,

the old system was collapsing,
so they were very poor.

We had to take everything to Russia.

The nails, the food,
the champagne for the party.

And the paint for the walls
and was extraordinary.

The British consul tried
to stop the exhibition

and I think they had other ideas,
other abstract more middle

class ideas of how Britain
should be represented.

They were just really wanting
to take their work to this whole

new audience,

who had hardly seen
contemporary Western art,

let alone Gilbert and George's work.

Russia was amazing success.

You don't have to be an art
expert to see our pictures.

We want them
just to be able to feel them,

to feel the emotion of that picture
and that's it.

From this experience
we realised that we can go

anywhere in the world.

And preach our idea of art.

I said to Gilbert and George,

you know where would
you like to go next?

China, it has to be China.

The totally unknown country
that must be a dream.

When we went to Beijing they already
had people who copied us, no,

doing living sculptures
all over the place.

Young people coming up to us

with blood running down their heads
saying, "I am living sculpture."

Hand in hand on the Great Wall.
It's amazing.

(LAUGHS)

They made us walk up the steps
of the Great Wall of China.

Oops. (LAUGHS)

(LAUGHING)

You want to do it.
It's the feeling of skiing.

We, as unhappy artists, are
very happy to be able to hold

an exhibition of our pictures
in China.

Our art fights for love
and tolerance

and in universal elaboration
of the individual.

In Beijing, when Gilbert
and George arrived

they get mobbed by people wanting,
uh, their autographs.

Even to the case where they have
to call in two security art police
to protect them.

GEORGE: We were literally mobbed.
We had to be rescued from the crowd.

GILBERT: Because they never
saw something like that before.

They have developed a poetry,
a visual language which can

speak across cultures,
can speak to anybody.

(IN CHINESE)

Say "when".

GILBERT: China was in some way more
liberal, more open and more modern.

It took an enormous amount
of money to put on these shows

which wasn't paid for by the British
government or the Chinese government

or the Arts Council.

It was hundreds of thousands
of pounds to ship all the work

out there, ship all the catalogues
of the show to sell very cheaply,

so that ordinary Chinese people
could afford to buy a catalogue.

A catalogue is ten yuan,
it was equivalent to a pound

and it probably cost you know
eight times that much to print.

GILBERT: Our art is human.

It speaks to people,
it's not abstract,

it's a humanity inside
our art in a big way.

INTERVIEWER: So does the viewer
complete the artwork?

Yes I think that's very important.
(TALKING OVER EACH OTHER)

GEORGE:
We all said that our definition was

the friendship that is formed
between the viewer and the art.

Amongst the naked shit pictures,

the most recent group of pictures
we made there's one called

Bumholes which is a portrait of
ourselves we've taken from the back.

And that's the favourite picture
of ladies.All the ladies

Isn't that interesting?
It's because they feel-

Enormous support for
that picture from ladies.

And, uh, they told us
b- why because they,

they feel vulnerable
like we feel vulnerable.

GEORGE: For many, many years, we've
always responded to people who

say that we set out to shock.

We always said we never
wanted to shock.

As artists, our job is to de-shock.

I think we've de-shocked a lot.

GILBERT:
Like nakedness. Why is it shocking?

When you did
the Naked Shit pictures,

when you appeared in them naked,
was that difficult to do?

Of course. The same as it
would be for anybody else.

Yes, it was quite difficult.

Try it. (LAUGHS)

Everyone knows how
vulnerable life is,

how delicate everything is.

And a lot of people
saw it in that way.

For them to expose themselves,
and really to kind of be their age

and to show their bodies, it's
something actually quite tender.

And I expected it to be more brutal.

MAN: David Sylvester, I think,
regarded rightly as the greatest

of the art critics, he once said,
most artists this century

have tried to do naked and have
only succeeded in doing nude.

Gilbert and George have done naked.

GEORGE:
Yes it was very perceptive of David.

'Cause very few people realised it,
and I think we did an art

that the viewer felt they
could trust us, that we

weren't looking down at the viewer,
that it was an experience together.

They've always wanted to challenge
people, they want people to think.

They like to sort of push things,

and poke and prod.

But not to the point
where people will turn away.

Or be terribly offended,
so that they just won't engage.

Because obviously that was-
it would be self-defeating.

GEORGE:
It was in the South London gallery.

It wasn't in the Hayward,
it wasn't in the Serpentine,

it wasn't in the Tate.

It was a gallery that had
two or three visitors a day

until the Naked Shit
pictures arrived.

GILBERT:
It was like, 1,000 people a day.

Can you imagine getting 1,000 people
a day down there?

Out of the blue?

The Naked Shit pictures,

if they were shown today,
would still create quite a stir.

They're tackling an aspect of life
which is very rarely tackled.

Notin a crude way,
in a very delicate way.

We think they're
extraordinary pictures.

It's just classic Gilbert and George
really just stick them up there,

huge larger than life turds.

And, um, make them into
somehow these beautiful things.

You know, um... (LAUGHS)

GEORGE: We think that the
subject matter that we took,

we were able to go deeper
inside a humanistic idea.

We can become closer to the
viewer on different levels.

He or she will be shitting
at some point during that day.

They will be going to the lavatory.

They will be conscious of illness,
they will be conscious of blood.

Everyone is.

Everyone sees it in the
newspapers in their life,

in their bedrooms, in their
bathrooms, and we can get closer

to the person on a human level
by extending the range of contact.

Yes, and we did do it
before in...Always.

In '75, we did, uh,
this piece called "Coming"

and we did this piece called
"Shitted" and a lot of other pieces.

But I think this time we were
able to make some visually

very beautiful, and even through
the blood piece that we did in the

Four Eight's piece,
we realised that all this fluid

that are part of us, no,
if you start to look through them,

you see the most beautiful- the most
beautiful life is in front of you.

This is the formula for shit
brown that we made in '74...

Yes, it took us one day to-

One whole day to get the right-
The right colour.

We used to call it
George Michael shit, no?

George Michael's arse brown,
we called it.

Glistening highlights.

Part of their, their thing really
is bringing out these things that-

that nobody el- nobody looks at, the
stuff that's ignored or forgotten or
despised.

And they sort of bring
these things to the fore

and put them on these huge grand
beautiful amazing colourful pictures

and they somehow transform
this detritus of society into

being kind of amazing beautiful
sayings.

There's something very
magical in that process.

GEORGE: Blood, tears, spunk, piss.
GILBERT: Yeah.

We used to take images of
the drops of rain on the cars

outside our house on Fournier Street
'cause you could see

the world in every single drop
if you look very closely.

And then we thought we should
take some images of that same

rainwater to see if there's anything
in there with the microscope.

Which lens is that on now?
Number two. Let's try number three.

And then there's nothing
in there of course.

So we thought we would try piss.

Which is as blank as rainwater here.

But just before we ended,

we switched the microscope off,
'cause it has an electrical thing.

We shouldn't leave it on, so we went
down to switch it off and to see

whether it was still on,
we looked through the lens

and there as a magical crazy
garden...

..in the piss.

And we found out every single
drop of piss was different.

Every day it was different.

There was a whole crazy w-
world of shapes and things.

It crystallised itself
into an amazing world.

And we were
so very fascinated by that.

Like the ones on the, on the
cards outside showed the church

and the streets,
this showed another world.

Yeah.

Then we started to try it
with blood, tears, spunk, piss.

Yeah.

Sweat, and we were very excited
to find they all had shapes,

shapes and meanings and content.

I think we took four months, no,
we were just doing that.

Nonstop every single day.
Mad about it.

Yes. And then we did
all the, the pictures.

"Blood, Tears, Spunk, Piss" is one of
the big quadropart of the pictures.

Can you imagine the galleries?

Behind it they were
all terrified, no?

Now remember Ileana Sonnabend
looked at it,

"Oh, my God,
what are they coming with now?"

Not entirely relaxed
about everything.Yeah.

Something that Gilbert
and George said to me

is about the microcosm
and the macrocosm.

You know, the tiny little
thing that happens, you know,

is symbolic of the
much bigger thing.

So these tiny kind of microscopic
cells that they were looking at can

give meaning to, you know, much
bigger sort of global things.

GEORGE: To make a picture which
actually speaks like personal things

there is a human cost for the artist.

The artist has to be
damaged in some way.

Uh, little brain damage or
a little emotionally damaged,

but there is a cost.

The greatest arrangement
on the planet is two people.

GILBERT: Can you imagine
being alone in the studio?

We've done pictures which would
be too scary for one person to do.

We are always making a difficult art
that is very personal in some way.

That's why a lot of collectors
have big problem to buy it,

because it's too personal
and too difficult.

But it's a journey that
is our personal journey.

Our art is always-
has always been very personal.

We think that we developed a
way of making pictures that needs

two people, really.Oh, yes.

It'd be very difficult for a person
to make pictures like this.

Both, both from the
physical point of view,

even from the emotional point
of view, it'd be very difficult.

We don't argue, but even if we
did, we wouldn't tell you about it.

We do know that we would,
if we would start to argue

everything would fall
apart very fast.

Because it's based
on accepting the two.

The view of two people together.
If not you are finished immediately.

We don't trust the idea
of a happy artist.

No- nobody would really
trust the idea of that.

As an artist who likes life
and likes art

and likes being artistic
and has artistic friends.

We celebrate life but we like to
be able to realise that there's

nothing in the world that is not
also inside of you or us or anybody.

Any horror in the world,
we're also capable of.

But I do believe that we went
through unbelievable difficult pain.

That's why we are not
able to remember anything.

We are able to remember very,
very little because it feels like

an enormous mad cloud of-
full of dark and all crazy stuff.

GILBERT:
It feels we are not aware
of this mad schizophrenia that

went on for 40 years now.

It's extraordinary.
I really believe never conscious.

GEORGE: We've always created pictures
which are slightly self-destructive

we would say.

That we believe in being disturbed.

We always said 10, 20 years ago that
we were the most disturbed people we
ever met.

Always next day maybe it's
going to be a better day.

That's what we were always,
our motto is always next day.

INTERVIEWER: You've now shown in
most, if not all the major museums

in the world, and you're
representing, at the moment,

Britain in the pavilion
at the Venice Biennale.

Does that mean, in a way, you've
become pillars of the establishment?

GILBERT: We never feel we
are accepted. Never get that.

We know we are not.

That's why we are fighting
every single day, every hour

towards acceptance.

What's your biggest hope?

We hope for better recognition.

Well, if the Venice Biennale isn't
recognition, I don't know what is.

GEORGE: I think there's a huge
division between the establishment

and the art profession and the
vast general public in the world.

I think we're much more accepted
in the vast general public,

even now the show in Venice is on.

I'm sure the knives will be out in
the press for certain, for certain.

We know which newspapers
will be completely against.

English artists have
to be Tate Britain

and modern artists
are at Tate Modern.

40 years, we have been campaigning
to be international modern artist.

We don't have to be provincial
artist going down to Tate Britain.

This is the first exhibition
to occupy the whole of level four,

and of course it's the
first exhibition ever

at Tate Modern of a British artist.

(TRAFFIC AMBIENCE)

When we started the new way
of making pictures was in 2000

when we started to use computers.

For years, young people had
been coming to our openings or

exhibitions saying,
"What computer are you using?"

They assume we were
using one already.

We did it manually,
layers after layers.

So it was a seamless move
over to the new technique.

It was almost like, you
know, photoshop had been

sort of designed around what
they had been doing previously.

It was very natural for them.

This is our favourite title,
"Bed Wetting".

In folklore, the children are
told not to touch dandelions,

because they would
become bedwetting, yeah.

Some people think we must miss
the romance of the dark room

and the chemicals and the smells.

We say not at all.

The only thing we miss
is a rubber glove.

(LAUGHS)

They haven't wavered from, um,

the formal aspects of their style
of picture making and that's

been a key to their success over the
course of the last nearly 60 years.

I think the audience for art is,

is the biggest change
that we feel every day.

Never did so many people know
about art and artists as now.

It is extraordinary
over the last 50 years.

Everybody knows what an artist is,
who an artist is.

The life of an artist is very
important to lots and lots of people.

We always feel we want
our picture to be seen.

We were looking for
finding a space where

we could make a kind of gallery.

This place came available
and we bought it.

We were very pleased.

The luck of the world to, to find
somewhere so near to where we live.

Wherever we walk, in London or Paris,
always a young person stops us

and says, "I love your art."

And we say, "Which exhibition?"
"Oh, I've never seen an exhibition."

They've always seen a catalogue
or a book or a television programme

or something else, so the idea that
you can be in front of the picture

is very, very important.

People come from different countries,
travel over to see it

from different walks of life.

It is very much an
artform experience.

And it works, it works very,
very well.

We're very, very pleased.

It's very nice and it's off Brick
Lane, it's on a cobbled street.

Then a little entrance
through into the gallery.

So they can walk in. Then, "Wow."

We can show groups of pictures.

One group, two groups or three
groups.Room for three group.

And it is, it's not overwhelming.

The legacy is secure
and rightly positioned

in the very geography where so much
of their art making has taken place

and so much of the work has
been drawn from inspiration.

It's lucky for all of us,
it's incredible.

People that don't know
I'm friendly with 'em.

They come in here and they go,
"Oh aren't you lucky.

You live near Gilbert and George.

Look at their centre
that we've just been."

It really is incredible.

GEORGE:
I think we're enjoying the success.

GILBERT: I think seeing people
going in and out of the foundation

is success for us.

Because, uh, we can see
they want to see our art.

They want see our vision.

We started to see all these leaf
that could be human in some way, no?

And making into
a jungle of paradise.

The paradisical pictures
are dealing with paradise,

or maybe paradise on earth.

AUTOMATED VOICE: 'Doors opening.'

It's perhaps not surprising that
people of their age are going to

think about their own mortality

and, uh, what happens
after they leave this world.

We rather think that the pictures
are not, you know, imaginary picture

of paradise, 'cause we're
not such damned fools to think

there is such a place,
but rather we're very conscious.

Every day, people talking about
the afterlife and the other world.

The promising of a ever-lasting
life to everyone.

So the pictures are about
what people have said and thought

and continue to think about
the next world rather than

an actual, imaginary,
damn silly place.

We do believe in the afterlife,
in that you can walk anywhere in

the world and stop a complete
stranger in the street

and say, "Vincent Van Gogh."

Whether they've seen a show,

or seen a book or not,
something will come into their mind.

If you say,
"Charles Dickens. Elvis Presley."

And that is the force of culture.
The greatest living force ever.

What is exciting
is that we are here.

But to go over 80 and we're
still able to make our art,

our vision is still there.

We never lost our vision
because the vision was based on us,

our journeys through life.

This amazing journey of us
is like pilgrim's progress.

Confronting life, no?

Confronting life every day.

It is amazing life experience
that we have together.

And we were able to describe it
through our art.

We always want to be
positive in making it.

It's very important to us
that we are living it

and the force of making it,
because life after all,

there is nothing better
than being alive.

I don't know how it is
being dead, but anyways.

Being alive,
it's extraordinary for us.

Our earliest ambition
was to win and be loved

and it's probably still true.

We didn't care what
they said about us.

OK, we disliked it, but we went
on to do exactly what we wanted.

We still feel separate
from normal life.

I think, in the end,
it was very simple.

We did our art and that was it.

GEORGE: Oh art, what are you?

You are so strong and powerful,
so beautiful and moving.

You make us walk around and around,
pacing the city at all hours.

In and out of our art for all room.

We really do love you
and we really do hate you.

Why do you have
so many faces and voices?

You make us thirst for you

and then to run from you,

escaping completely
into a normal life.

Getting up, having breakfast,
going to the workshop

and being sure of putting our mind

and energy into the making of a door
or maybe a simple table and chair.

The whole life would surely be
so easeful,

so drunk with the normality of work.

And yet, art,
there is not going back.

All roads go only on and on.

We're happy for the good times
that you give us

and we work and wait only for
these titbits from your table.

If you only knew how
much these mean to us,

transporting us from the depths
of tragedy and black despair

to a beautiful life of happiness,
taking us where the good times are.

One day we thought we saw you, art.

It was in a crowded street.

You were dressed in a light
brown suit, white shirt

and a curious blue tie.

You looked very smart,

but there was about your dress
a curious wornness and dryness.

You were walking alone, light of
step and in a very controlled sense.

We were fascinated
by the lightness of your face,

your almost colourless eyes
and your dusty blond hair.

We approach you nervously.

And then, just as we neared you,
you went out of sight for a second.

And then we could not find you again.

We felt sad and unlucky.
At the same time, happy and hopeful

to have seen your reality.

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