The exhibition begins on the concourse with a selection of materials from the start of their career, including some of the postal sculptures that they sent out to major figures in the art world, and the original layout board for the 1969 Magazine Sculpture GEORGE THE CUNT AND GILBERT THE SHIT. The photo-pieces on the wall relate to the artists’ intense bouts of drinking in the early 1970s, an essential part of their lives which they felt should not be excluded from their art. The Drinking Sculptures use fractured viewpoints and tilted angles to suggest the feeling of getting riotously wasted. The HUMAN BONDAGE series explore their experiences of squalor and degradation, with images arranged in the shape of a reverse swastika or fylfot. The artists were using this symbol to make a statement about inner destruction. In the DARK SHADOW pictures which followed, clearly set inside their home in Fournier Street, disorienting double-exposures and blood-like spatters continue the descent into darkness and depression.
Gilbert & George HUMAN BONDAGE NO.5 1974
175 x 175 cm
Private collection, London
Gilbert & George DARK SHADOW NO.4 1974
211 x 156 cm
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
Gilbert & George DARK SHADOW NO.6 1974
151 x 206 cm
Private collection, London
Gilbert & George DARK SHADOW NO.8 1974
151 x 206 cm
Van Abbemuseum Collection, Eindhoven
Gilbert & George GEORGE THE CUNT AND GILBERT THE SHIT 1969
A Magazine Sculpture, Private collection
Gilbert & George PHOTO-PIECE 1971
159 x 143 cm
Collection S.M.A.K., Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium
Gilbert & George PHOTO-PIECE 1971
130 x 180 cm
Agnes and Frits Becht Collection, Naarden, The Netherlands
Gilbert & George BALLS or THE EVENING BEFORE THE MORNING AFTER 1972
211 x 437 cm
Tate. Purchased 1972
Gilbert & GeorgeAXE BAR 1973
129 x 109 cm
Private collection
Gilbert & GeorgeGIN AND TONIC 1973
71 x 42 cm
Private collection, courtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York
Gilbert & George THE GLASS 2 1973
130 x 85 cm
Private collection, London
Gilbert & George HEAD OVER HEELS 1973
277 x 64 cm
Collection of Samuel and Ronnie Heyman
RATHER SPORTY 1973
15 x 96 cm
Private collection, courtesy Sonnabend Gallery, New York
Gilbert & George ‘TO HER MAJESTY’ 1973
145 x 350 cm
Collection Max de Jong, France
Gilbert & George TWO A.M. 1973
122 x 89 cm
Collection Herbert
Gilbert & George
THE EFFECT formerly known as A DRINKING PIECE 1973
173 x 82 cm
Francesca and Massimo Valsecchi
Entrance
Gilbert & George ALL MY LIFE I GIVE YOU NOTHING AND STILL YOU ASK FOR MORE 1970
193 x 75 cm
A charcoal on paper sculpture
Private collection, courtesy MaxmArt, Mendrisio

