Gilbert & George Biography
Gilbert & George, born Gilbert Prousch (San Martino in Badia, 1943) and George Passmore (Plymouth, 1942) are a duo of contemporary artists. Gilbert studied first in Italy, at the Selva di Val Gardena/Wolkenstein Art School and later in Austria, at the Hallein Art School, and finally in Germany at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. George attended Dartington Adult Education Centre, Dartington Hall College of Art and the Oxford School of Art. In 1967 Gilbert & George met at St. Martin's School of Art in London. Since 1968 they have lived and worked together in London. Forerunners in choosing the unconventional stage for their talent, they moved to the workers' neighborhood of Spitalfields (which in the seventies was the slum of the East End of London and today is now the meeting place par excellence for artists and intellectuals, starting from their followers such as Tracey Emin or the Chapman Brothers) and immediately oppose elite art: they call their home "Art for All" and define themselves as "living sculptures". In 1969 the artists were called to exhibit at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. From 1972-73 they collaborated with prestigious galleries, the London-based Anthony d'Offay, the Sonnabend Gallery in New York, the Galerie Konrad Fischer in Düsseldorf. In 1990 the artists created the work The Cosmological Pictures which was presented in ten different European countries between 1991 and 1993. In 1992 they exhibited their most impressive work, New Democratic Pictures, at the Aarhus Art Museum in Denmark. In 2007 the Tate Modern in London hosted them for a huge retrospective never before dedicated to living artists. A further celebration of their artistic journey will be the awarding of the Lorenzo il Magnifico Lifetime Achievement Award at the VI edition of the International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Florence. Their work has long established itself throughout the world, as evidenced by the important exhibition venues that have hosted it and continue to do so: National Art Gallery, The Art Museum of Shanghai, Museum of Modern Art of Lugano, the exhibition-event Documenta in Kassel, Kunsthalle of Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle of Bern, Center Georges Pompidou of Paris, MAMbo of Bologna, Biennale of Florence.
