Gilbert & George - Lot 181

Gilbert & George The Ten Commandments for GILBERT & GEORGE 48 pages, paperback, dust jacket Numbered 35 from an edition of 299 "L'art en écrit", 1995. Editions Janninck Format: 125 x 210 mm An original silkscreen print signed and numbered by the artists is included. Note: From their first end-of-year exhibition at Saint Martin's School of Art in London in 1967, Gilbert (Prousch, b. 1943, Dolomites, Italy) and George (Passmore, b. 1942, Devon, England) went against the grain of the artistic canon of the time. Both subjects and objects of their art, the two artists saw themselves as a single artistic entity, and devoted their lives to their art, eliminating all superfluous preoccupations, and adhering to a discipline as rigorous as it was creative, while allowing themselves the utmost folly. From the early 1970s onwards, Gilbert & George created art in imposing, even colossal formats, representing the world of today and tomorrow. Like living sculptures, they developed a repetitive language based on recurring figures and motifs: shit, piss, blood, tears, nudity, sperm, alcohol and drugs. A work that radically overturns the conventions and self-righteousness of the time, and literally refers to homosexuality, exclusion, and social and religious violence. Unpublished text with an original silkscreen signed and numbered by the artists.