The whack-jobs that are “Gilbert and George”
Gilbert and George are whack-jobs. They are crazy and their artwork is crazy. They are extremely successful however, because their works speak to a good amount of people. I think what draws people in is the fact that when first peering at Gilbert and George’s artworks, it becomes clear that these two men share something that is deep rooted. They know each other very well, and that comes across immediately in their pieces. People are drawn to that sort of connectedness that isn’t really found all the time in artwork. There is trust in each piece of art between the two of them, as well as between the viewer and artist. They are really trusting us to look at their photos with open eyes. Some of their works are actually very interesting, yet somehow gross. In one collection they did, Naked Shit Pictures, they used actual fecal matter, urine, and semen to create the photos. They also inserted naked pictures of themselves as well, since the point of the collection was to show the naked body in terms of the Bible. This is also where the feces and such come into play; in the Bible the naked body is seen as being somewhat bad. Gilbert and George want to make it clear what the Bible is really saying, which is that the naked human body is shit. That is the message they want to come across and to do that they use pictures of feces, urine and semen. They achieve their goal of getting that message across, there is actually one photo that I really like from a different segment (SHITTY from the collection SHITTY NAKED HUMAN WORLD) and I think they can definitely be considered artists. They know what they want to say.
While I can understand the messages they want the public to see in their photos, the performance art they are well known for doesn’t makes sense to me at all. In one piece, they dressed themselves in business suits, which they now always where (or don’t…), and got drunk off of gin. They did this a few times and would take pictures of themselves drunk. I don’t understand what they were trying to say by getting drunk. I thought maybe it had something to do with the fact that they were in business suits, perhaps they were making a commentary on business men or something, but then they kept wearing them and that just confused me. I really don’t see the art in getting drunk. What also bothered me about that particular piece is that they didn’t even seem to have a reason for doing it. None of their performance art, which they are quite well-known for, offers any substantial reason to warrant it’s need in society. They don’t have significant reasons for doing any of their performance pieces. This is in such stark contrast to Zhang Huan. He has a reason for every single thing he does. He doesn’t tell you always what that reason is, but you can tell that there is one buried in there soewhere. His works are just so much more interesting and Giblert and George can’t compete with him at all in my opinion.