Gilbert & George

THE BANNERS, 2015
Metal pins (2 pins)
Unnumbered limited edition.

In the late 1960s the artist duo Gilbert & George defined themselves as “living sculptures,” making their bodies and personal images central to their works in a practice they continue today. During the Extinction Marathon, an event held in 2014 at Serpentine Galleries in London, the artists presented a living sculpture, standing silently in front of an au- dience, holding banners, with political and satirical slogans written on them. THE BANNERS evolved from this idea, presenting posters exhibited in the space and badges that visitors can take away with them when they leave. In this way the artworks, worn by the public, become visible everywhere, spreading the artists’ notion of “Art for all.”

About the artist: 

From 1972-73 they collaborated with prestigious galleries, the London-based Anthony d'Offay, the SonnabendGallery 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 large retrospective dedicated to living artists.

Their work has long established itself all over the world, as evidenced by the important exhibition venues that have hosted them 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 in Düsseldorf, Kunsthalle in Bern, Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, MAMbo in Bologna, Florence Biennale.