Gilbert & George, “Jackshit,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

The White Cube is hosting Gilbert & George’s “Jack Freak Pictures,” the largest series ever by the artists.  Both the Hoxton and Mason’s Yard galleries will be home to the paint collection, of selections also showed at Berlin’s Arndt & Partner.  The exhibition quite literally makes freaks of Jack as in the Union Jack.  Set in the East End of London, “Jack Freak Pictures” is peopled with medals, maps, street-signs and other recognizable symbols of British identity.  The series is in line with other works by Gilbert & George, who subsume identity questions surrounding sexuality, religion, and nation into the provocative colors which their grid pictures confine.

Related links:
White Cube – JACK FREAK PICTURES
Gilbert & George, the Terrible Two, Freak Out in London Shows [Bloomberg]
Gilbert and George: the odd couple [The Guardian]
How Gilbert and George make history [The Guardian]
Gilbert & George: The Jack Freak Pictures, White Cube [The Independent]
Gilbert & George: ‘There’s nothing wrong with patriotism’ [Independent]
Gilbert and George’s Jack Freak Pictures Arrive in Berlin for First Solo Exhibition in 14 Years [Artdaily]
Arndt & Partner – Jack Freak Pictures

The Telegraph on Gilbert & George’s “Jack Freak Pictures,” currently showing at White Cube.

More images and story after the jump…

The issues depicted in “Jack Freak Pictures,” they say, are the “issues that are in everybody else as well: sex, money, race and religion.” Similarly, the artists themselves — as architects of the grid, itself a re-imagining of their subjects — appear in the works, as in “God Guard Thee.”  Like the Union Jack, their bodies are sometimes fragmented, at other points whole.  “Sex and Religion” (2008) satirizes the Church’s attitude toward homosexuality.  “Christian England,” also pictured below, has a crucified Jesus flanked by men with faces obscured by the flags they wear.

Gilbert & George, “God Guard Thee,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Sex and Religion,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Christian England,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Bleeding Medals,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Handball,” at White Cube. Via FAD.

Gilbert was born in 1943 in Italy, and studied at the Wolkenstein School of Art, the Hallein School of Art (Austria), and the Munich Academy of Fine Arts.  George, born in 1942 in Devon, England, studied at the Dartington Hall College of Art and the Oxford Art School.  The two met in a sculpture class at St. Martin’s School of Art in London, where they were both finally enrolled, and have lived and worked together as “living sculptures” ever since.  Dressed always in the tweed suits which exemplify British, the pair have worked in video and sculpture, before arriving at the grid-like pictures which became their hallmark.  “Jack Freak Pictures” recalls earlier work, in which figures and bodily excrement, faces and cityscapes, appear in a mishmash of symbols overlaid by grid.

Gilbert & George, “Knees-Up,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Sap,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Metropolitan Police Annual Pornographic Football Awards,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Pregnant,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Jumping Jehoshaphat,” at White Cube Hoxton.

The 1986 winners of the Turner Prize, Gilbert & George have had numerous solo exhibitions around the world. Galleries who hosted them include London’s Whitechapel; the National Gallery, Beijing, the Shanghai Art Museum; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; and the Serpentine Gallery, London.  The duo showed at the 2005 Venice Biennale, and were honored by Tate Modern’s largest retrospective of any artist.  After closing at the Tate, the retrospective toured Haus der Kunst, Munich; Castelo di Rivioli, Turin; the Milwaukee Art Museum; and Brooklyn Museum, where it remained through the beginning of this year.

Gilbert & George, “Sunni,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Xerxes,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “School Playground” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Jeepers Creepers,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Night Moves,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Jackanapes,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Bethnal Green Road E1,” at White Cube Hoxton.

Gilbert & George, “Abode,” at White Cube. Via FAD.

Gilbert & George, “Homey,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Sporting Life,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “In Aspic,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “It Shall Be Written,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Yobs,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Burn in Hell,” at White Cube.  Via Bloomberg.

Gilbert & George, “Nettle Dance,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Forward,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

Gilbert & George, “Gilbert & George Certify That You Are,” at White Cube Mason’s Yard.

– R. Fogel

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 26th, 2009 at 8:33 pm and is filed under Go See. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.