Opening Reception Thursday, February 3, 6 – 8 PM
Gagosian Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibition of The Rudimentary Pictures by Gilbert and George. Remarkably, The Rudimentary Pictures, a group of thirty-three works, will be the first solo exhibition by the internationally renowned duo on the West Coast.
Since they galvanized the international art world in the late 1960's with their presentations of Living Sculptures, Gilbert and George have created a body of work based primarily on the concept that their lives and experiences form the content of their art. Since the beginning, the artists have been inspired by the essence of life on the streets in the East End of London: the graffiti, the refuse, the street boys and the local people. Recently, they have incorporated the structures created from microscopic enlargements of essential body fluids, such as blood, tears, sweat, urine and semen. Many pictures in this exhibition, Money City, Gum City, Crying City and Blood City employ street maps as a background or surface. In Sex City, Kink, Naked Cemetery, and Love Spunk, detailed areas of the street map are precisely selected and encircled so that street names and locations reveal an urban system of verbal double meanings.
"They (the pictures) deal with the thoughts and feelings that lie within us all and with the issues that confront us daily. Our cities, your tears, their money, the rain, our sexuality, your sweat, their views are all in "The Rudimentary Pictures"*
