1 00:00:01,083 --> 00:00:03,763 The following programme contains strong language 2 00:00:03,803 --> 00:00:06,123 and scenes of a sexual nature. 3 00:00:14,923 --> 00:00:19,003 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 4 00:00:19,043 --> 00:00:22,603 GEORGE: We are Gilbert and George. 5 00:00:23,563 --> 00:00:27,763 We started with a very simple motto, "art for all." 6 00:00:28,963 --> 00:00:33,043 Then we went on to have a what you would call a manifesto. 7 00:00:33,083 --> 00:00:36,283 When somebody says manifesto we're already very alarmed 8 00:00:36,323 --> 00:00:40,843 'cause we think that sounds like some revolutionary thing from Russia 9 00:00:40,883 --> 00:00:43,283 and we didn't think and feel like that. 10 00:00:46,203 --> 00:00:48,203 We just say it's a message from us 11 00:00:48,243 --> 00:00:53,123 to the viewer that we believe in the art and the life of the artist. 12 00:00:54,763 --> 00:00:58,163 GILBERT: When we made ourself the ten commandments for us 13 00:00:58,203 --> 00:01:01,163 and the laws of the sculptors. 14 00:01:01,203 --> 00:01:03,963 How to behave to become artist. 15 00:01:04,003 --> 00:01:08,683 How to live and how to better ourself to be a more complex 16 00:01:08,723 --> 00:01:10,363 human being. 17 00:01:10,403 --> 00:01:13,443 GEORGE: "Art for all" one of our earliest slogans. 18 00:01:14,563 --> 00:01:15,923 GILBERT: Art for all. 19 00:01:15,963 --> 00:01:18,803 GEORGE: 1969 maybe even earlier. 20 00:01:32,483 --> 00:01:37,803 People always ask how it was that we came to be two people and one artist 21 00:01:37,843 --> 00:01:43,283 and how we decided that and we always say that we never decided it. 22 00:01:43,323 --> 00:01:45,163 It was something that came over us. 23 00:01:45,203 --> 00:01:49,123 It's something very mysterious to us to this day even. 24 00:01:51,203 --> 00:01:56,563 GILBERT: A journey of art is long so we are walking again and again 25 00:01:56,603 --> 00:02:00,723 and again and we are living it, this extraordinary life. 26 00:02:01,803 --> 00:02:03,963 GEORGE: We like to think that everything every day 27 00:02:04,003 --> 00:02:08,083 and every night is past, present and future all rolled into one. 28 00:02:11,003 --> 00:02:14,443 GILBERT: Our art is not based on looking outside. 29 00:02:14,483 --> 00:02:17,243 It's all looking inside yourself. 30 00:02:17,283 --> 00:02:21,283 All that vision is inside you and not outside. 31 00:02:22,203 --> 00:02:26,203 Outside will stay forever roughly the same, 32 00:02:26,243 --> 00:02:29,963 but in the inner thought is full of contradiction, 33 00:02:30,003 --> 00:02:34,163 full of complexity like we all are, human people. 34 00:02:34,203 --> 00:02:37,163 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 35 00:02:44,683 --> 00:02:46,683 GEORGE: Well a lot of people ask us 36 00:02:46,723 --> 00:02:49,683 if the pictures are to do with our mortality. 37 00:02:49,723 --> 00:02:53,883 Which we think is too early for us to be making pictures about that. 38 00:02:53,923 --> 00:02:56,963 You need bones to live, to walk to work you need bones, 39 00:02:57,003 --> 00:03:00,203 to go to the gymnasium, to go jogging you need bones. 40 00:03:00,923 --> 00:03:04,563 It's a bit like, what was the Max Bygraves' song "You Need Hands." 41 00:03:04,603 --> 00:03:07,403 Well you need bone for everything to live. 42 00:03:08,443 --> 00:03:12,483 GILBERT: You know the meaning that is in every dictionary, hmm. 43 00:03:12,523 --> 00:03:16,403 GEORGE: In the entertainment world corpsing crops up all the time. 44 00:03:16,443 --> 00:03:19,043 People who are in the middle of a performance and suddenly 45 00:03:19,083 --> 00:03:23,283 they can't think what to do next or somebody makes them gi-giggle. 46 00:03:23,323 --> 00:03:25,243 It's called dying in America. 47 00:03:25,283 --> 00:03:28,123 But, uh, corpsing is the English word for it. 48 00:03:28,163 --> 00:03:31,843 GILBERT: But I mean we meant really like corpses. 49 00:03:31,883 --> 00:03:36,403 We are not walking anymore so they can see the soles of our shoes. 50 00:03:37,283 --> 00:03:42,043 GEORGE: We like the idea 'cause that's how we all traverse this world. 51 00:03:42,083 --> 00:03:46,283 Whether walk in a prison cell or in a palace. 52 00:03:46,323 --> 00:03:48,723 It-it is all the bottoms of the feet. 53 00:03:48,763 --> 00:03:52,843 GILBERT: Not only that Dick Whittington, he came to London walking. 54 00:03:52,883 --> 00:03:57,723 And that's why we have the soles gold. 55 00:03:58,923 --> 00:04:01,523 GEORGE: We're doing it for Dick. (LAUGHS) 56 00:04:03,043 --> 00:04:05,283 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 57 00:04:06,403 --> 00:04:09,283 We are the artwork. 58 00:04:09,323 --> 00:04:13,363 And we're there just as everybody's in a letter they write. 59 00:04:13,403 --> 00:04:16,323 Doesn't matter whether you write to your mother or to your bank manager 60 00:04:16,363 --> 00:04:18,283 you will always sign it yourself. 61 00:04:18,323 --> 00:04:23,083 These pictures are, are letters or visual love letters from us 62 00:04:23,123 --> 00:04:24,523 to the viewer. 63 00:04:24,563 --> 00:04:26,403 How is the tea, Gilbert? 64 00:04:27,323 --> 00:04:30,683 It's very nice. Would you like some cake? 65 00:04:31,683 --> 00:04:33,003 Thank you. Yes. 66 00:04:33,043 --> 00:04:36,203 GILBERT: The vision of our life is in front of them. 67 00:04:36,243 --> 00:04:40,003 I think that's the most exciting thing from, that we ever did. 68 00:04:40,043 --> 00:04:43,403 We invented that in 1968 or 69. 69 00:04:43,443 --> 00:04:49,123 We became the art and we are able to tell the world how we behave, 70 00:04:49,163 --> 00:04:50,923 how we are. 71 00:04:50,963 --> 00:04:55,203 Drunk or not drunk. They don't know that. 72 00:04:55,243 --> 00:04:58,083 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 73 00:04:59,603 --> 00:05:04,963 The totality of their work when it- when it's seen as a- 74 00:05:05,003 --> 00:05:10,243 as a journey through life will be well a remarkable portrait. 75 00:05:10,283 --> 00:05:12,923 There's never been, um... 76 00:05:12,963 --> 00:05:18,723 ..a more complete documentation of a relationship. 77 00:05:19,523 --> 00:05:22,643 A relationship between two men... 78 00:05:22,683 --> 00:05:27,883 ..ever in any art form at any time. 79 00:05:32,043 --> 00:05:34,003 (SOLEMN MUSIC) 80 00:05:35,163 --> 00:05:39,643 NARRATOR: Think of your first view of the Dolomites, the Italian Alps. 81 00:05:42,123 --> 00:05:45,803 GILBERT: It's fantastic village where I come from in the Dolomites. 82 00:05:45,843 --> 00:05:50,003 NARRATOR: Think of mountain highways and a little roadside church. 83 00:05:50,043 --> 00:05:51,403 (BELL TOLLING) 84 00:05:51,443 --> 00:05:54,003 GILBERT: When I was young I had the dream to be an artist 85 00:05:54,043 --> 00:05:56,643 so I-I moved first to Austria. 86 00:05:56,683 --> 00:05:58,123 Then to Germany. 87 00:05:58,163 --> 00:06:01,563 Then I still felt, uh, it was not it. 88 00:06:01,603 --> 00:06:04,123 So I moved to London. 89 00:06:05,283 --> 00:06:09,643 And we met on the top floor of Saint Martins School of Art. 90 00:06:10,963 --> 00:06:14,163 He took an interest in me. That's about it. 91 00:06:15,563 --> 00:06:18,763 George was from Devon and he showed me London 92 00:06:18,803 --> 00:06:21,563 and we wanted to be artists together. 93 00:06:21,603 --> 00:06:26,003 NARRATOR: Devon and Cornwall are the two South Western counties of England... 94 00:06:26,043 --> 00:06:28,523 GEORGE: It was just my mother and my brother. 95 00:06:28,563 --> 00:06:32,963 We were bombed out of Plymouth in '42, so we ended up in Totnes. 96 00:06:33,003 --> 00:06:36,683 I was interested in art from being a child and as a teenager 97 00:06:36,723 --> 00:06:40,843 I bought a second-hand book of Van Gogh's letters. 98 00:06:40,883 --> 00:06:43,243 And that convinced me entirely. 99 00:06:43,283 --> 00:06:46,323 GILBERT: I mean, we were working class people. 100 00:06:46,363 --> 00:06:48,083 Starting art with nothing. 101 00:06:48,843 --> 00:06:50,483 GEORGE: At Saint Martins, 102 00:06:50,523 --> 00:06:53,643 we were in what was called the advanced sculpture course. 103 00:06:53,683 --> 00:06:55,403 GILBERT: And it was extraordinary. 104 00:06:55,443 --> 00:06:58,723 They only believe in squares and triangles and lines. 105 00:06:58,763 --> 00:07:02,403 GEORGE: Form, angle, a little colour. 106 00:07:03,763 --> 00:07:07,123 GILBERT: And we rejected it in a big way. 107 00:07:09,443 --> 00:07:12,683 Well, I'm now joining this to this, Charlie... 108 00:07:12,723 --> 00:07:15,683 Hmm. ..in exactly in the position it's in. 109 00:07:15,723 --> 00:07:20,043 NARRATOR: Anthony Caro, whose work in teaching had been very influential recently, 110 00:07:20,083 --> 00:07:23,443 one of the first to introduce colour into his sculptures. 111 00:07:23,483 --> 00:07:26,243 I think we believed that formalism was a bore. 112 00:07:26,283 --> 00:07:28,843 No-not an intellectual activity. 113 00:07:28,883 --> 00:07:33,043 We thought it was entirely unintellectual and unemotional. 114 00:07:33,083 --> 00:07:35,043 Meaning was a dirty word. 115 00:07:36,683 --> 00:07:41,363 Lot of sex, death, hope, everything was something wrong with that. 116 00:07:41,403 --> 00:07:44,003 And that was a big inspiration to us. 117 00:07:44,043 --> 00:07:46,883 We knew that the art that the students 118 00:07:46,923 --> 00:07:50,723 and the teachers were creating, if you took it out of Saint Martins 119 00:07:50,763 --> 00:07:54,883 onto the Charing Cross Road, it would have no meaning whatsoever. 120 00:07:56,603 --> 00:07:59,963 Form is the servant of meaning we say. 121 00:08:00,003 --> 00:08:03,003 Form must never be predominant. 122 00:08:03,043 --> 00:08:09,043 We want a human person in front of you expressing himself being alive. 123 00:08:09,083 --> 00:08:12,523 Being alive is part of the art of us. 124 00:08:13,723 --> 00:08:17,243 We even went to see the head of the sculpture department 125 00:08:17,283 --> 00:08:18,883 a year after we left. 126 00:08:18,923 --> 00:08:23,443 The famous sculptor Anthony Caro, explained our new thoughts and 127 00:08:23,483 --> 00:08:26,963 feelings about art and how it should be democratic and how we should try 128 00:08:27,003 --> 00:08:30,963 to create an art which had meaning, uh, and a moral dimension. 129 00:08:31,003 --> 00:08:33,363 And he listened very politely I must say. 130 00:08:33,403 --> 00:08:37,483 And in the end he said, "Well, I hope very much that you won't 131 00:08:37,523 --> 00:08:40,083 succeed, but I rather think you might." 132 00:08:40,123 --> 00:08:41,803 (LAUGHTER) 133 00:08:42,523 --> 00:08:45,123 'Cause he realised that we were threatening 134 00:08:45,163 --> 00:08:48,323 the prominence of formalism. 135 00:08:48,363 --> 00:08:50,763 We wanted to say something 136 00:08:50,803 --> 00:08:55,083 not about art or shapes or design or form but about... 137 00:08:55,123 --> 00:08:56,723 GILBERT: Humanity. 138 00:08:56,763 --> 00:08:58,123 Death. Hope. 139 00:08:58,163 --> 00:08:59,443 Life. Fear. 140 00:08:59,483 --> 00:09:00,643 Sex. Money. 141 00:09:00,683 --> 00:09:02,163 Race. Religion. 142 00:09:03,323 --> 00:09:05,283 It was quite exciting 143 00:09:05,323 --> 00:09:09,163 when Saint Martins School of Art in some ways chucked us out. 144 00:09:09,203 --> 00:09:11,643 We still wanted to be artists. 145 00:09:11,683 --> 00:09:16,683 But we were alone in the streets of London with nowhere to go. 146 00:09:16,723 --> 00:09:18,523 (SIREN WAILS) 147 00:09:18,563 --> 00:09:19,763 (DRAMATIC MUSIC) 148 00:09:19,803 --> 00:09:23,283 NARRATOR: London thou art the flower of cities all. 149 00:09:23,323 --> 00:09:27,643 Gem of all joy, jasper of jocundity. 150 00:09:29,163 --> 00:09:32,883 GEORGE: Out of all bad luck, always good luck, comes as we believe, 151 00:09:32,923 --> 00:09:35,843 so that when we left college, most people would say that we 152 00:09:35,883 --> 00:09:39,003 were down on our luck, 'cause we hadn't been the goody goody students 153 00:09:39,043 --> 00:09:40,963 who would get a part time teaching job. 154 00:09:41,003 --> 00:09:44,963 We hadn't been the goody goody students who had applied for a grant for a studio. 155 00:09:45,003 --> 00:09:46,843 We had no money, we were very poor. 156 00:09:46,883 --> 00:09:51,043 But that in a way was the best thing that ever happened to us. 157 00:09:51,083 --> 00:09:53,523 GILBERT: Before we started to make art together, 158 00:09:53,563 --> 00:09:55,363 we used to do a lot of walking. 159 00:09:55,403 --> 00:09:57,163 GEORGE: We were walking the streets, 160 00:09:57,203 --> 00:09:59,683 because we were fascinated 161 00:09:59,723 --> 00:10:04,243 by the tube stations and the railways stations and the police stations. 162 00:10:04,283 --> 00:10:08,323 And the palaces and the pool halls and the nightclubs and all 163 00:10:08,363 --> 00:10:13,443 the amazing invention of the free world and the, of the western world. 164 00:10:13,483 --> 00:10:18,843 GILBERT: I mean, the walk became a sculpture. It became the art. 165 00:10:21,843 --> 00:10:27,643 It was a magic idea to become the object, the visual art. 166 00:10:28,483 --> 00:10:31,243 GEORGE: In, in defiance of everything.Yes. 167 00:10:32,123 --> 00:10:36,883 We decided we don't have to sculpt or paint to do art, 168 00:10:36,923 --> 00:10:42,563 we just can be ourself and journey through life with the pilgrim's progress. 169 00:10:42,603 --> 00:10:46,723 We are confronting drunkenness, we are confronting being too sexy, 170 00:10:46,763 --> 00:10:48,523 we are confronting religion. 171 00:10:48,563 --> 00:10:52,163 We are confronting politics. And we are still doing that. 172 00:10:53,803 --> 00:10:57,123 GEORGE: I think it's probably true to say that it's something that came 173 00:10:57,163 --> 00:11:00,363 over us as a whole idea and thought. 174 00:11:00,403 --> 00:11:03,483 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 175 00:11:03,523 --> 00:11:06,563 We felt the appearance of many artists at that time 176 00:11:06,603 --> 00:11:11,163 and traditionally, historically, alienated huge sections of society. 177 00:11:12,723 --> 00:11:15,323 We didn't want to be the freaky artists with beards 178 00:11:15,363 --> 00:11:16,683 and strange clothes. 179 00:11:18,763 --> 00:11:21,003 We felt we wanted to be, to be normal. 180 00:11:23,283 --> 00:11:24,763 Are you OK? How are you? 181 00:11:24,803 --> 00:11:26,043 Hello. Morning. 182 00:11:26,843 --> 00:11:29,443 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 183 00:11:31,843 --> 00:11:33,803 We tried to sell ourselves. 184 00:11:33,843 --> 00:11:36,163 We went to the ICA (UNCLEAR). 185 00:11:36,203 --> 00:11:39,083 We, we were going to see people 186 00:11:39,123 --> 00:11:41,323 and so we felt we had to dress up. 187 00:11:41,363 --> 00:11:43,803 Double pockets, double pockets, always so. 188 00:11:43,843 --> 00:11:46,723 And lining inside the trousers? Yes, lining inside trousers, yes. 189 00:11:46,763 --> 00:11:48,843 Very good.I don't know what to do with your pockets. 190 00:11:48,883 --> 00:11:51,363 What on earth do you do, razor blades in the... (LAUGHS) 191 00:11:51,403 --> 00:11:53,003 Not telling. (LAUGHS) 192 00:11:53,963 --> 00:11:56,643 GEORGE: Applying for a job, you put on a collar and tie. 193 00:11:56,683 --> 00:11:59,403 GILBERT: And that became our dress code. 194 00:11:59,443 --> 00:12:04,443 I would call it Sunday best. Never identical. 195 00:12:04,483 --> 00:12:05,923 They are identical. 196 00:12:05,963 --> 00:12:08,163 But it was very important, 197 00:12:08,203 --> 00:12:11,043 because we were trying to reach these people. 198 00:12:12,403 --> 00:12:18,003 We started out by applying to every single gallery in London. 199 00:12:18,043 --> 00:12:20,643 Not the good ones, but all of them 200 00:12:20,683 --> 00:12:23,123 to ask if them if they would like to exhibit our art. 201 00:12:23,163 --> 00:12:24,443 And all of them said no. 202 00:12:25,283 --> 00:12:27,803 GILBERT: We'd just left Saint Martins School of Art. 203 00:12:27,843 --> 00:12:30,283 And nobody would touch us in a million year. 204 00:12:30,323 --> 00:12:33,203 GEORGE: We went to every single gallery even the ones we'd never 205 00:12:33,243 --> 00:12:35,803 heard of just to say that we'd been to every gallery. 206 00:12:35,843 --> 00:12:40,043 We presented an idea of our intentions for the future as artists. 207 00:12:40,083 --> 00:12:42,803 And said, you know, we would like to offer an exhibition. 208 00:12:42,843 --> 00:12:45,363 They all said no. And we felt enormously proud, 209 00:12:45,403 --> 00:12:47,563 we thought we really are doing something amazing. 210 00:12:47,603 --> 00:12:49,803 Yeah doing the right thing. Everybody says no. 211 00:12:49,843 --> 00:12:52,003 We were offering them full of different ideas. 212 00:12:52,043 --> 00:12:54,563 We went to the Tate and we said we would like to present 213 00:12:54,603 --> 00:12:57,883 a living sculpture called a Christmas piece where we'd 214 00:12:57,923 --> 00:13:01,243 already organised with the RSPCA to borrow animals. 215 00:13:01,283 --> 00:13:04,883 And we, we would recreate the birth of Jesus in the entrance 216 00:13:04,923 --> 00:13:08,083 of the Tate and we would stand there as two living figures. 217 00:13:08,123 --> 00:13:10,923 It didn't occur to us that, that maybe wasn't very right, 218 00:13:10,963 --> 00:13:12,923 we would be Mary and Joseph in a way. 219 00:13:12,963 --> 00:13:15,203 So of course, uh, again they turned it down. 220 00:13:15,243 --> 00:13:20,523 GILBERT: The only way to reach people was to do postal pieces. 221 00:13:20,563 --> 00:13:25,763 We did a lot of different one, three or 400, uh, postal pieces. 222 00:13:25,803 --> 00:13:30,003 And they all contacted us. They realised art was fee. 223 00:13:30,043 --> 00:13:32,163 They didn't have to pay for it anymore. 224 00:13:32,203 --> 00:13:34,243 It came through the door. 225 00:13:34,283 --> 00:13:37,763 GEORGE: We realised what we wanted to do which was to have a speaking 226 00:13:37,803 --> 00:13:40,963 art to speak directly to the viewer. 227 00:13:41,003 --> 00:13:44,323 To make that human contact and they felt it in that way. 228 00:13:45,163 --> 00:13:48,603 People wrote back and things which was extraordinary. 229 00:13:50,963 --> 00:13:54,803 And then we created the magazine sculpture, 230 00:13:54,843 --> 00:13:56,763 Gilbert the Shit and George the Cunt, 231 00:13:56,803 --> 00:14:01,603 and we felt we should exhibit it somewhere in London before it was published. 232 00:14:02,363 --> 00:14:05,243 We, we had no idea who would like to show it. 233 00:14:05,283 --> 00:14:09,923 We went in to Robert Fraser Gallery and he came up with a- 234 00:14:09,963 --> 00:14:13,923 Yes, we thought it was the longest yes in the world we'd ever heard. 235 00:14:13,963 --> 00:14:15,243 Yessss. 236 00:14:15,283 --> 00:14:18,483 It went on for 15 minutes. It felt it was extraordinary. 237 00:14:18,523 --> 00:14:21,683 He agreed to show the magazine sculpture. 238 00:14:21,723 --> 00:14:24,163 GILBERT: For only three hours. 239 00:14:24,203 --> 00:14:27,443 GEORGE: It was the most famous gallery for pop artists. 240 00:14:27,483 --> 00:14:28,483 (LAUGHTER) 241 00:14:28,523 --> 00:14:32,243 It was, it wouldn't been a gallery for us anyway. 242 00:14:32,283 --> 00:14:34,603 There was no gallery for us in London at that time. 243 00:14:34,643 --> 00:14:36,203 It didn't, didn't exist. 244 00:14:36,923 --> 00:14:40,763 We took the magazine sculpture under- underneath our arm to the gallery. 245 00:14:40,803 --> 00:14:42,363 GILBERT: And that was it. 246 00:14:43,243 --> 00:14:45,683 When we did Gilbert the Shit and George the Cunt, 247 00:14:45,723 --> 00:14:50,083 it was the first time that we confronted our public and humiliated ourselves. 248 00:14:50,123 --> 00:14:53,803 And we realised that is enormous freedom in that. 249 00:14:53,843 --> 00:14:57,763 We are able to free ourself and nobody's able to... 250 00:14:57,803 --> 00:15:00,403 They are not able to attack you after that. 251 00:15:01,483 --> 00:15:05,843 After that, we were able to squeeze into a lot of different places. 252 00:15:06,923 --> 00:15:09,003 But we didn't have a studio. 253 00:15:09,883 --> 00:15:11,683 NARRATOR: Fournier Street. 254 00:15:12,843 --> 00:15:15,283 Built by the Huguenots in 1724. 255 00:15:16,243 --> 00:15:20,563 GILBERT: We first moved into Fournier Street, because it was cheap. 256 00:15:20,603 --> 00:15:24,083 We were told it was the cheapest place in London. 257 00:15:24,123 --> 00:15:27,883 And it was true you could hire any floor of any building. 258 00:15:27,923 --> 00:15:30,843 Whether it was the basement or the attic or the first floor. 259 00:15:30,883 --> 00:15:33,403 They were always £12 a month. 260 00:15:33,443 --> 00:15:35,963 And we could just about afford that. 261 00:15:36,003 --> 00:15:41,163 GILBERT: Not only that, the streets of London, East End of London, 262 00:15:41,203 --> 00:15:44,603 it is yellow light, awesomely magic. (SUNDAY BELLS TOLLING) 263 00:15:44,643 --> 00:15:48,163 And we started to love the street ourself, 264 00:15:48,203 --> 00:15:50,123 because all this 18th century house 265 00:15:50,163 --> 00:15:54,723 and there are some of the most beautiful houses in London probably. 266 00:15:54,763 --> 00:15:57,403 JULIAN: Spitalfields, Shoreditch 267 00:15:57,443 --> 00:16:01,843 was, when they first moved there in 1967, 268 00:16:01,883 --> 00:16:07,003 really, really run-down poor area. I mean it was a slum. 269 00:16:07,883 --> 00:16:12,523 Gilbert and George, they'd both come from working class backgrounds. 270 00:16:12,563 --> 00:16:17,203 So they weren't fearful of living somewhere like that. 271 00:16:17,243 --> 00:16:21,763 You know, as perhaps more middle-class artists probably 272 00:16:21,803 --> 00:16:25,283 would've gone and lived in Chelsea or Kensington. 273 00:16:26,243 --> 00:16:28,643 Gilbert and George were never interested in that. 274 00:16:28,683 --> 00:16:31,843 You know they're just interested in real life. 275 00:16:31,883 --> 00:16:33,603 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 276 00:16:33,643 --> 00:16:35,203 (TRAFFIC AMBIENCE) 277 00:16:40,963 --> 00:16:44,483 This area was derelict for a long time. 278 00:16:45,243 --> 00:16:47,203 People wouldn't come here. 279 00:16:47,243 --> 00:16:50,323 I mean, a lot of people, especially from the city, 280 00:16:50,363 --> 00:16:53,523 they used to open my door and go "Ah." 281 00:16:53,563 --> 00:16:55,403 You know, they really did. 282 00:16:55,443 --> 00:16:56,843 But I didn't care. 283 00:16:56,883 --> 00:17:01,083 You know, people used to say to me, "How do you live here?" 284 00:17:01,843 --> 00:17:04,443 "What do you mean, 'How do I live here?' I love it." 285 00:17:04,483 --> 00:17:09,283 And when I hear people say it was scary, it makes me quite angry. 286 00:17:09,323 --> 00:17:12,523 Spitalfields was a fruit and veg market. 287 00:17:12,563 --> 00:17:16,003 Then opposite, you had the flower market. 288 00:17:16,043 --> 00:17:18,403 All the customers were lovely. 289 00:17:18,443 --> 00:17:22,243 You never had to watch your back ever, ever, ever. 290 00:17:23,723 --> 00:17:25,363 GEORGE: It was very interesting. 291 00:17:25,403 --> 00:17:27,243 For 15 years all the journalists used to say, 292 00:17:27,283 --> 00:17:29,283 "Why don't you move to a nicer part of London?" 293 00:17:29,323 --> 00:17:33,323 And for the last 50 years, they're saying, "Oh it's become too trendy. Isn't it time you moved on?" 294 00:17:33,363 --> 00:17:34,803 So they always wanted us to leave. 295 00:17:34,843 --> 00:17:38,483 I mean, we always felt that it was dangerous, it was rough, it was romantic. 296 00:17:38,523 --> 00:17:42,883 We used to take a taxi. Invariably, the taxi driver in the West End, 297 00:17:42,923 --> 00:17:45,323 if we said we we're going Fournier Street, they would say, 298 00:17:45,363 --> 00:17:47,443 "What do you wanna go there for, guv?" 299 00:17:47,483 --> 00:17:50,683 When they did arrive, they would pull up outside number 12 300 00:17:50,723 --> 00:17:53,563 and look around and say, "When's this lot coming down then?" 301 00:17:53,603 --> 00:17:56,483 Not will it come down, when will it come down. 302 00:17:56,523 --> 00:18:00,283 So it was an exciting part of London to be in. 303 00:18:01,403 --> 00:18:04,643 I was born five minutes from here. 304 00:18:04,683 --> 00:18:08,003 Loved it, loved, I had a lovely upbringing. 305 00:18:08,963 --> 00:18:13,923 1979, my husband and brother came to me and said, 306 00:18:13,963 --> 00:18:17,323 "We want a pub in Commercial Street." 307 00:18:17,363 --> 00:18:20,563 I said, "Well don't look at me. I don't want a pub." 308 00:18:20,603 --> 00:18:23,123 (LAUGHS) Anyway, they said, "Just come and see it." 309 00:18:23,163 --> 00:18:27,803 So I came one lunchtime and I walked in the saloon bar 310 00:18:27,843 --> 00:18:31,083 and fell immediately in love with it. 311 00:18:31,123 --> 00:18:34,483 I didn't know if it was god made me love it, I don't know. 312 00:18:35,803 --> 00:18:38,043 Been in here 45 year. 313 00:18:38,083 --> 00:18:43,123 I knew Gilbert and George were artists, but I used to think 314 00:18:43,163 --> 00:18:47,363 how cool they- They reminded me of my father, because my father 315 00:18:47,403 --> 00:18:52,283 and most East Enders never went out with a whistle or flute. 316 00:18:52,323 --> 00:18:54,723 They always had their suit, shirt and tie. 317 00:18:54,763 --> 00:18:57,523 I love getting up in the morning. 318 00:18:57,563 --> 00:18:59,963 I'm down here no later than six. 319 00:19:00,003 --> 00:19:03,443 Open my doors, you know, 320 00:19:03,483 --> 00:19:06,283 some mornings I have coffee with G&G. 321 00:19:06,323 --> 00:19:09,803 They're so interesting. Even early in the morning. 322 00:19:10,563 --> 00:19:13,843 I think Gilbert and George, although they're not East Enders, 323 00:19:13,883 --> 00:19:16,163 they remind me of East Enders. 324 00:19:16,203 --> 00:19:18,523 They've got that sa- same heart. 325 00:19:18,563 --> 00:19:21,243 There's a photo behind the bar. 326 00:19:21,283 --> 00:19:26,963 That might have been my 50th which was nearly 30 years ago. 327 00:19:27,003 --> 00:19:30,923 One thing about 'em, they never let me down. 328 00:19:30,963 --> 00:19:36,803 If I'm doing something special, they'll always turn up. 329 00:19:40,363 --> 00:19:42,643 (SOLEMN MUSIC) 330 00:19:48,083 --> 00:19:49,963 GEORGE: Well we liked the world. 331 00:19:50,003 --> 00:19:53,283 It was a complete contrast to where we'd grown up. 332 00:19:54,163 --> 00:19:59,123 We liked this dirty, urban, crazy world filled with danger. 333 00:19:59,163 --> 00:20:01,323 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 334 00:20:06,323 --> 00:20:08,283 GILBERT: In 1970, and 80, 335 00:20:08,323 --> 00:20:12,243 all the tramps were walking up and down the street. 336 00:20:12,283 --> 00:20:14,643 GEORGE: There were more tramps than non-tramps 337 00:20:14,683 --> 00:20:17,603 and we felt they had a charm and they had a being. 338 00:20:17,643 --> 00:20:22,203 It was just sort of community in a way these, these lost souls. 339 00:20:22,243 --> 00:20:24,723 None of those people are alive anymore. 340 00:20:24,763 --> 00:20:27,403 And they were replaced by a younger group of similarly 341 00:20:27,443 --> 00:20:30,523 disenfranchised, one could say, and that's the drug addicts. 342 00:20:30,563 --> 00:20:33,363 But they also have their own charm in, in a way. 343 00:20:33,403 --> 00:20:37,563 And they're not, not entirely separate from us, either. 344 00:20:37,603 --> 00:20:40,723 It feels a certain kinship with us. 345 00:20:40,763 --> 00:20:43,603 A month or so ago, we were walking down Whitechapel, 346 00:20:43,643 --> 00:20:45,963 and one was coming along the pavement towards us 347 00:20:46,003 --> 00:20:48,843 looking very tattered and their trousers were torn. 348 00:20:48,883 --> 00:20:53,363 There was some horrible brown blood or something come out of one ear. 349 00:20:53,403 --> 00:20:57,563 And as he came slightly nearer to us he recognised us. 350 00:20:57,603 --> 00:21:00,683 And said, commenting on our art, 351 00:21:00,723 --> 00:21:03,443 he said, (WITH ACCENT) "I like the shit ones best." 352 00:21:03,483 --> 00:21:06,163 We laughed and then we cried. Yeah, us both. 353 00:21:10,843 --> 00:21:15,123 JAY: They work in, in Spitalfields based in Fournier Street. 354 00:21:15,163 --> 00:21:17,163 Brick Lane is around the corner. 355 00:21:18,243 --> 00:21:21,963 They very rarely stray from that environment and their- 356 00:21:22,003 --> 00:21:25,363 of their immediate neighbourhood. 357 00:21:27,923 --> 00:21:31,923 They are able to treat their daily walk as some 358 00:21:31,963 --> 00:21:37,003 kind of pilgrimage to what is going on around them and it's out of the- 359 00:21:37,043 --> 00:21:42,603 whether it's detritus on the streets or graffiti they see on the wall, 360 00:21:42,643 --> 00:21:46,443 or the leaves of the trees around them 361 00:21:46,483 --> 00:21:49,883 that they're able to make their pictures 362 00:21:49,923 --> 00:21:53,043 and they absolutely treasure the rich complexity 363 00:21:53,083 --> 00:21:57,083 of the area and its changing history over the years. 364 00:22:01,163 --> 00:22:05,443 GILBERT: The Corpsing Picture came about because we were walking every 365 00:22:05,483 --> 00:22:07,283 night towards dinner. 366 00:22:07,323 --> 00:22:10,403 And what did we see every single day? Bones. 367 00:22:13,923 --> 00:22:17,803 GEORGE: And we realised it was all because the young people who were heading 368 00:22:17,843 --> 00:22:21,923 for Hoxton or Brick Lane in the evening don't want to have dinner. 369 00:22:21,963 --> 00:22:24,243 They don't want to sit up like a silly grown up. 370 00:22:24,283 --> 00:22:26,803 They hop from pub to club to friend's house. 371 00:22:26,843 --> 00:22:28,523 And so they eat on the run. 372 00:22:28,563 --> 00:22:30,883 Which means they leave bones behind. 373 00:22:31,683 --> 00:22:34,123 But that's not why we made the pictures. 374 00:22:36,003 --> 00:22:40,123 And then when they've all gone home and Brick Lane is closed down, 375 00:22:40,163 --> 00:22:44,083 somebody comes into the district and that is the foxes. 376 00:22:44,123 --> 00:22:47,443 Walking in from Essex. How long does it take 'em? 377 00:22:47,483 --> 00:22:49,603 And they're coming in for the bones. 378 00:22:51,403 --> 00:22:53,923 But that's not why we made the pictures. 379 00:22:54,963 --> 00:22:57,003 And then the foxes have had their dinner 380 00:22:57,043 --> 00:22:59,483 and they go home back to the country. 381 00:22:59,523 --> 00:23:01,683 And the sun comes out 382 00:23:01,723 --> 00:23:06,123 and suddenly huge flocks of seagulls fly in from the coast. 383 00:23:06,163 --> 00:23:08,323 How long does it take 'em to fly in? 384 00:23:08,363 --> 00:23:10,483 And they're coming in for the bones. 385 00:23:10,523 --> 00:23:12,963 But that's not why we made the pictures. 386 00:23:15,723 --> 00:23:17,563 You know, they could've been anywhere. 387 00:23:17,603 --> 00:23:19,963 I mean, their work would've been different, actually, 388 00:23:20,003 --> 00:23:21,803 and they probably would've been different 389 00:23:21,843 --> 00:23:25,363 if they had been in a different neighbourhood of London. 390 00:23:26,243 --> 00:23:31,203 Most of the images in their work are derived from things 391 00:23:31,243 --> 00:23:34,963 that are, you know, in their street or around the corner. 392 00:23:36,403 --> 00:23:40,123 GILBERT: Once we'd opened the door at 12 Fournier Street, 393 00:23:40,163 --> 00:23:41,483 what is in front of us? 394 00:23:42,283 --> 00:23:44,363 Oh, a dead bone on the street. 395 00:23:44,403 --> 00:23:46,683 Oh, a dead leaf on the street. You know. 396 00:23:46,723 --> 00:23:49,443 So it's already s- We don't have to think, 397 00:23:49,483 --> 00:23:54,683 we just look and feel what could be part of our new vision. 398 00:23:56,203 --> 00:23:59,243 The most exciting or second most exciting thing is life is 399 00:23:59,283 --> 00:24:00,963 the creative process. 400 00:24:01,003 --> 00:24:03,803 And that, that for us is extraordinarily thrilling, 401 00:24:03,843 --> 00:24:08,843 slightly sexual, very intellectual, very mental as well. 402 00:24:08,883 --> 00:24:13,563 We are quite excited because it feels really like we are dead 403 00:24:13,603 --> 00:24:18,603 bodies in a basket and that's quite, uh, powerful in some way. 404 00:24:18,643 --> 00:24:21,043 This, uh, going near to death. 405 00:24:23,803 --> 00:24:27,603 With The Corpsing Pictures, a number of people found 406 00:24:27,643 --> 00:24:33,323 that direct engagement with their own mortality quite disturbing, 407 00:24:33,363 --> 00:24:35,843 not provocative, but disturbing. 408 00:24:35,883 --> 00:24:39,443 And their work has often, um, been considered disturbing. 409 00:24:39,483 --> 00:24:43,843 So, I don't think that's too different from other series 410 00:24:43,883 --> 00:24:45,163 that they've made. 411 00:24:45,203 --> 00:24:47,803 But it, it definitely shows that right up into the, 412 00:24:47,843 --> 00:24:51,083 the most recent body of work they're still, um, 413 00:24:51,123 --> 00:24:54,843 finding different ways to transport people. 414 00:25:00,883 --> 00:25:03,763 GEORGE: We were walking the streets of London. 415 00:25:03,803 --> 00:25:06,243 We were wandering near Euston station. 416 00:25:06,283 --> 00:25:08,483 We found the little old shop selling 417 00:25:08,523 --> 00:25:12,603 all of the things that people leave behind in the flat when they leave. 418 00:25:12,643 --> 00:25:15,563 All the unwanted bits and pieces. 419 00:25:15,603 --> 00:25:19,043 And we found a copy of a gramophone record with the title, 420 00:25:19,083 --> 00:25:21,283 Underneath the Arches. 421 00:25:21,323 --> 00:25:25,203 We didn't know what the song was, but we knew what the words meant. 422 00:25:25,243 --> 00:25:27,963 Because we were living in the East End where people 423 00:25:28,003 --> 00:25:29,723 were living underneath the arches. 424 00:25:29,763 --> 00:25:32,883 Damaged people from the First World War, the Second World War. 425 00:25:32,923 --> 00:25:37,243 People damaged by pre-decriminalisation sex laws. 426 00:25:37,283 --> 00:25:41,483 The idea of a complicated extraordinary life 427 00:25:41,523 --> 00:25:45,923 is part of how we make our pictures, how we create our pictures. 428 00:25:45,963 --> 00:25:47,683 And we were amazed by the simplicity 429 00:25:47,723 --> 00:25:51,523 and complicatedness of the song which was very simple. 430 00:25:51,563 --> 00:25:52,643 The words were, 431 00:25:52,683 --> 00:25:54,723 # The Ritz I never sigh for 432 00:25:54,763 --> 00:25:56,803 # The Carlton they can keep 433 00:25:56,843 --> 00:25:59,763 # There is only one place that I know 434 00:25:59,803 --> 00:26:03,483 BOTH: # And that is where I sleep 435 00:26:03,523 --> 00:26:06,123 # Underneath the arches 436 00:26:06,163 --> 00:26:09,163 # I dream my dreams away 437 00:26:09,203 --> 00:26:11,683 # Underneath the arches 438 00:26:11,723 --> 00:26:14,403 # On cobblestone we lay 439 00:26:14,443 --> 00:26:16,723 # Every night you'll find me 440 00:26:16,763 --> 00:26:20,083 (FROM OLD FOOTAGE) # Tired out and worn 441 00:26:20,123 --> 00:26:22,923 # Happy when the daylight 442 00:26:22,963 --> 00:26:24,923 # Comes creeping... # 443 00:26:24,963 --> 00:26:27,723 And there in the moment we thought we'd got it. 444 00:26:27,763 --> 00:26:29,603 We'd got a key to something. 445 00:26:29,643 --> 00:26:32,723 GILBERT: First we only did it for five minutes 446 00:26:32,763 --> 00:26:35,723 then we realise that we could actually do it much longer, no? 447 00:26:35,763 --> 00:26:39,723 To create a, a repetition and to make them to transfix the public 448 00:26:39,763 --> 00:26:41,283 towards the sculpture, no? 449 00:26:41,323 --> 00:26:43,763 We are not able to move, like in a trance. 450 00:26:43,803 --> 00:26:45,363 (INDISTINCT SINGING) 451 00:26:45,403 --> 00:26:49,003 GEORGE: I think people were, were more bemused than anything else. 452 00:26:49,043 --> 00:26:54,763 Living sculptures actually occupy a unique place, uh, in our history 453 00:26:54,803 --> 00:27:00,203 where real life and artistic form somehow converge perhaps into one. 454 00:27:01,123 --> 00:27:04,363 They moved like automata. 455 00:27:04,403 --> 00:27:07,603 They would do it all day and they would do it 456 00:27:07,643 --> 00:27:09,843 whether there was anybody there or not. 457 00:27:09,883 --> 00:27:12,963 I was so fascinated, I used to sneak up the stairs, creep up the stairs, 458 00:27:13,003 --> 00:27:15,643 and look in, and they were indeed doing it to an empty gallery. 459 00:27:15,683 --> 00:27:17,003 They were obsessive. 460 00:27:19,803 --> 00:27:22,883 GILBERT: We did it for eight hours non-stop. 461 00:27:22,923 --> 00:27:27,283 It was extraordinary mental piece of work. 462 00:27:27,323 --> 00:27:31,363 We managed to remove us ourself from the public 463 00:27:31,403 --> 00:27:35,083 by putting on the multi-coloured heads. 464 00:27:35,123 --> 00:27:38,243 It is powders that you put on top of Vaseline, no? 465 00:27:38,283 --> 00:27:40,523 You really become the visual art. 466 00:27:41,403 --> 00:27:44,283 INTERVIEWER: Is every moment of your day art? 467 00:27:44,323 --> 00:27:47,723 Are you sculpturing or sculpting continuously? 468 00:27:48,723 --> 00:27:50,043 More or less, yes.Yes. 469 00:27:50,083 --> 00:27:52,563 You don't take breaks for living at all? 470 00:27:52,603 --> 00:27:55,323 No, the whole living is one bit sculpture. 471 00:27:55,363 --> 00:27:58,243 # There's only one place that I know... # 472 00:27:58,283 --> 00:28:01,843 GILBERT: We didn't need canvases. We didn't need metal. 473 00:28:01,883 --> 00:28:05,483 It was the beginning of the realisation that everything 474 00:28:05,523 --> 00:28:09,683 that come to us could be described of our vision of art. 475 00:28:09,723 --> 00:28:11,843 And that was the biggest success. 476 00:28:11,883 --> 00:28:13,683 BOTH: # Pavement is my pillow 477 00:28:13,723 --> 00:28:19,243 I was very taken by the fact that artists could be the art. 478 00:28:20,643 --> 00:28:26,363 And the very democratic way in which they engaged with their audience. 479 00:28:26,403 --> 00:28:28,843 I found utterly radical. 480 00:28:31,283 --> 00:28:34,403 GEORGE: We thought we were very, very sophisticated to have this 481 00:28:34,443 --> 00:28:37,923 new belief in art having a meaning for people's lives. 482 00:28:37,963 --> 00:28:40,763 Didn't matter where they live in the world, what their education 483 00:28:40,803 --> 00:28:44,283 or religious background, that we can speak to people. 484 00:28:45,123 --> 00:28:48,363 GILBERT: And we had to dry-clean our suits. 485 00:28:48,403 --> 00:28:51,163 (LAUGHS) Because they became the objects. 486 00:28:52,683 --> 00:28:56,203 Very, very slowly become, we became quite known 487 00:28:56,243 --> 00:28:59,043 and was in a big article in the Sunday Times. 488 00:28:59,763 --> 00:29:04,083 We met Konrad Fischer at the ICA. And he came out to us and said, 489 00:29:04,123 --> 00:29:07,243 "You do something with me in Dusseldorf, huh?" 490 00:29:07,283 --> 00:29:11,163 And he was, at the time, the most famous gallery for young artists. 491 00:29:11,203 --> 00:29:12,203 In the world. 492 00:29:12,923 --> 00:29:15,763 So we did the living sculpture in Dusseldorf. 493 00:29:16,643 --> 00:29:20,643 Then later on, we were doing the singing sculpture in Brussels. 494 00:29:20,683 --> 00:29:24,363 At the end of the evening, what we thought was a little old lady, 495 00:29:24,403 --> 00:29:28,683 came up to us and said, "My name is Ileana Sonnabend and I'm opening 496 00:29:28,723 --> 00:29:33,283 a gallery in New York and I want you to be the first exhibition." 497 00:29:33,323 --> 00:29:37,443 And that was the most famous North American modern gallery 498 00:29:37,483 --> 00:29:39,123 for our generation. 499 00:29:39,163 --> 00:29:41,843 We took the singing sculpture to New York. 500 00:29:41,883 --> 00:29:43,843 And that Saturday was the first time 501 00:29:43,883 --> 00:29:47,483 it opened in the downtown disreputable district. 502 00:29:47,523 --> 00:29:50,523 And all, all the people had walked down to this 503 00:29:50,563 --> 00:29:53,363 amazing new gallery district. 504 00:29:54,323 --> 00:29:59,723 Their first show in New York was a tremendous success. 505 00:29:59,763 --> 00:30:03,763 There were people coming in and it was so crowded. 506 00:30:03,803 --> 00:30:06,283 Uh... (LAUGHS) And um... 507 00:30:06,323 --> 00:30:11,603 you know everybody was singing the song in the street even. 508 00:30:11,643 --> 00:30:12,803 (LAUGHS) 509 00:30:12,843 --> 00:30:16,643 GEORGE: Warhol was there. All of the American artists were very friendly. 510 00:30:16,683 --> 00:30:20,203 All came up and invited us for lunch or for dinner or for drinks. 511 00:30:20,243 --> 00:30:22,283 GILBERT: Rauschenberg actually cooked for us. 512 00:30:22,323 --> 00:30:23,923 And he was a very good cook. 513 00:30:24,963 --> 00:30:28,603 INTERVIEWER: Obviously repetition is key.GILBERT: Oh, yes.GEORGE: Yes. 514 00:30:28,643 --> 00:30:31,163 Are you aware of communication between yourselves 515 00:30:31,203 --> 00:30:32,683 and the onlookers?Oh, yes. 516 00:30:32,723 --> 00:30:35,363 Oh yes. Uh, quite a lot of communication. 517 00:30:35,403 --> 00:30:37,283 (LAUGHS)A lot- (LAUGHS) 518 00:30:38,203 --> 00:30:42,523 Konrad Fischer said, do something to leave behind in my art gallery 519 00:30:42,563 --> 00:30:45,923 because the living sculpture you couldn't leave behind. 520 00:30:45,963 --> 00:30:49,483 So we started to do these big drawings. 521 00:30:50,723 --> 00:30:54,283 We tried to make the drawings like they already existed, huh. 522 00:30:55,083 --> 00:30:57,963 They looked like 200 to 300 years old, no. 523 00:30:58,003 --> 00:30:59,883 But still us in it. 524 00:31:02,283 --> 00:31:08,243 The first sculpture we did was called, "Walking, Viewing, Relaxing." 525 00:31:08,283 --> 00:31:10,723 And that was because we knew how to walk, 526 00:31:10,763 --> 00:31:13,643 we knew how to view and we knew how to relax. 527 00:31:13,683 --> 00:31:16,483 Yeah, so we put up these three drawings in a gallery 528 00:31:16,523 --> 00:31:21,163 and at the end of the evening Konrad Fischer said to us, "I've sold them all. 529 00:31:21,883 --> 00:31:24,243 £1,000." 530 00:31:24,283 --> 00:31:25,883 We, we only set the sum of £1,000, 531 00:31:25,923 --> 00:31:29,083 'cause it was the largest sum we could think of.(LAUGHS) 532 00:31:29,123 --> 00:31:31,043 Because, obviously, nobody's going to buy it, 533 00:31:31,083 --> 00:31:34,563 so it might as well have a grand price, but he did sell it. Extraordinary. 534 00:31:34,603 --> 00:31:37,923 That's it, and for the first time in our life we had money. 535 00:31:37,963 --> 00:31:39,203 (GLASSES CLINKING) 536 00:31:39,243 --> 00:31:42,763 Then we began the drinking sculptures immediately.Day and night. 537 00:31:42,803 --> 00:31:45,643 (SLURRING) This is a lot of bloody bollocks. (LAUGHS) 538 00:31:45,683 --> 00:31:49,563 (SLURRING) He's just a silly old queen. 539 00:31:51,403 --> 00:31:53,923 Everything was going on at the same time. 540 00:31:59,003 --> 00:32:00,843 We had a show in New York. 541 00:32:02,283 --> 00:32:04,083 In Tokyo, Germany. 542 00:32:05,243 --> 00:32:07,323 Italy, Brussel. 543 00:32:08,923 --> 00:32:11,683 So we were global artists. 544 00:32:14,403 --> 00:32:17,003 We took over the whole Hayward Gallery. 545 00:32:17,043 --> 00:32:20,563 I don't know how happy the other artists were, but anyway. 546 00:32:20,603 --> 00:32:23,923 There were two huge charcoal-on-paper sculptures, 547 00:32:23,963 --> 00:32:26,283 the showpiece one and the showpiece two. 548 00:32:26,323 --> 00:32:30,123 We had to borrow a studio somewhere to do them, I think. 549 00:32:30,163 --> 00:32:33,523 They were an enormous task to do. It was quite exciting. 550 00:32:33,563 --> 00:32:38,363 We managed to create an amazing atmosphere and was in the jungle. 551 00:32:39,963 --> 00:32:42,883 We never wanted to go near the other artists. 552 00:32:42,923 --> 00:32:46,883 We felt they, they did a different kind of art, 553 00:32:46,923 --> 00:32:49,563 so we kept ourself to ourself. 554 00:32:49,603 --> 00:32:51,963 And I think that was the success. Yes. 555 00:32:52,003 --> 00:32:57,683 So we didn't feel the nagging that was going around us. 556 00:32:57,723 --> 00:33:01,003 NARRATOR: George and Gilbert or Gilbert and George. 557 00:33:01,043 --> 00:33:05,123 Their presence attracts large crowds to the art gallery of New South Wales. 558 00:33:05,163 --> 00:33:08,443 GILBERT: We were taken up by a lot of these galleries. 559 00:33:08,483 --> 00:33:11,603 We thought we are it. We are doing whatever we want 560 00:33:11,643 --> 00:33:15,803 because our life was the most important part of our art, no. 561 00:33:15,843 --> 00:33:18,963 We are speaking different than the other artists. 562 00:33:19,803 --> 00:33:23,923 They tried to claim us, but we are outsiders. 563 00:33:23,963 --> 00:33:26,683 GEORGE: We still feel that every day. 564 00:33:26,723 --> 00:33:29,643 We feel never part of the world out there. 565 00:33:29,683 --> 00:33:31,563 We made ourself different. 566 00:33:32,883 --> 00:33:34,643 Artists have to be outsiders. 567 00:33:34,683 --> 00:33:37,923 Gilbert and George have been incredibly 568 00:33:37,963 --> 00:33:43,803 conscious of trying to maintain that position. 569 00:33:43,843 --> 00:33:46,203 It's about them, you know, and their vision. 570 00:33:47,283 --> 00:33:50,683 It's almost kind of monk-like, I always think, 571 00:33:50,723 --> 00:33:54,203 just cutting yourself off really from all of that 572 00:33:54,243 --> 00:33:57,483 kind of rubbish that we have to do in our lives. (LAUGHS) 573 00:33:57,523 --> 00:33:59,483 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 574 00:34:00,443 --> 00:34:02,643 (TRAFFIC AMBIENCE) 575 00:34:08,403 --> 00:34:09,883 (CHILDREN CHATTERING) 576 00:34:10,643 --> 00:34:15,363 GEORGE: I think becoming artists in London we felt we had to get rid 577 00:34:15,403 --> 00:34:19,363 of a lot of things and those things were mostly to do with nature. 578 00:34:19,403 --> 00:34:20,923 (BIRDS CHIRPING) 579 00:34:20,963 --> 00:34:24,683 As we're both country bumpkins, we only knew how to express 580 00:34:24,723 --> 00:34:28,883 ourselves through branches and roots and trees and landscapes. 581 00:34:28,923 --> 00:34:31,163 And we wanted to lose all of that. 582 00:34:31,203 --> 00:34:34,883 And we were very nervous that people loved the charcoal-on-paper 583 00:34:34,923 --> 00:34:37,443 sculptures for what they were physically. 584 00:34:37,483 --> 00:34:40,963 They adore this big sheets of crinkly paper. 585 00:34:41,923 --> 00:34:45,443 And we felt that they weren't listening or looking to see 586 00:34:45,483 --> 00:34:48,483 what the art works were actually saying to them. 587 00:34:49,203 --> 00:34:55,203 GILBERT: We wanted to go away from art made with a pencil or a brush. 588 00:34:57,043 --> 00:35:01,283 We wanted to get ready for our first titled pictures and then the dirty 589 00:35:01,323 --> 00:35:06,243 words pictures where we would lose all trace of contact with nature. 590 00:35:08,003 --> 00:35:12,643 We are interested a way of making art that is only 591 00:35:12,683 --> 00:35:15,963 the power of the image is important, not the material. 592 00:35:16,003 --> 00:35:19,363 The material is cheap only, the message is important. 593 00:35:21,003 --> 00:35:24,523 Even how to make art was different. 594 00:35:24,563 --> 00:35:29,043 Nobody did photographic images to make them speak like modern art. 595 00:35:29,083 --> 00:35:34,163 They did all painting, express themselves with paint 596 00:35:34,203 --> 00:35:36,243 and we never wanted that. 597 00:35:36,283 --> 00:35:41,723 We thought, we are able to speak much better with this new form of image. 598 00:35:43,923 --> 00:35:46,083 Gilbert and George use photography 599 00:35:46,123 --> 00:35:49,483 because they'd feel there's no sort of moral superiority 600 00:35:49,523 --> 00:35:54,123 in oil on canvas and that, if you like, the most efficient way 601 00:35:54,163 --> 00:35:58,683 of making pictures, depicting the world, is a photograph. 602 00:35:58,723 --> 00:36:02,123 Of course, uh, photography does this incredibly well and they, 603 00:36:02,163 --> 00:36:05,603 if you like, use photography on a very, very grand scale 604 00:36:05,643 --> 00:36:07,203 to make great paintings. 605 00:36:09,163 --> 00:36:12,603 GEORGE: We always used the term "negative" 606 00:36:12,643 --> 00:36:17,323 describing the base of our pictures, because we don't take photographs, we take a negative. 607 00:36:17,363 --> 00:36:21,603 When you press the button on the camera, you are creating a negative. 608 00:36:22,323 --> 00:36:26,523 We don't know what we're doing when we start making our pictures. 609 00:36:26,563 --> 00:36:28,403 We don't even want to know. 610 00:36:28,443 --> 00:36:30,643 We don't have an idea what to do. 611 00:36:30,683 --> 00:36:34,043 We only have some kind of dream that is taking over. 612 00:36:34,083 --> 00:36:38,483 We believe in other forces outside of ourselves. 613 00:36:38,523 --> 00:36:42,003 And a force of culture within the person of, of all the books 614 00:36:42,043 --> 00:36:46,163 we've read or haven't read, all the movies we've seen or haven't seen. 615 00:36:46,203 --> 00:36:50,003 All of life's experience which we have or not experienced. 616 00:36:50,043 --> 00:36:54,043 And they have to play into the moment when we make that picture. 617 00:36:54,923 --> 00:36:59,603 But the Dirty Words, we were able to do a different kind of art. 618 00:36:59,643 --> 00:37:02,803 But everything was there ready for those kind of pictures. 619 00:37:02,843 --> 00:37:04,523 (BROODING SYNTHETIC MUSIC) 620 00:37:04,563 --> 00:37:07,163 We don't look for it, it's just in front of us. 621 00:37:07,203 --> 00:37:11,043 Every subject. We never search for it, it's just there. 622 00:37:12,523 --> 00:37:15,843 Queer, shit, cunt. Bastard, cunt. 623 00:37:17,043 --> 00:37:19,283 The dirty words, if you look back, 624 00:37:19,323 --> 00:37:22,763 they create this extraordinary feeling of the anarchy that was 625 00:37:22,803 --> 00:37:24,403 going on in England. 626 00:37:24,443 --> 00:37:27,643 And this aggression that was inside a lot of people. 627 00:37:28,963 --> 00:37:31,403 And we didn't write those words on the walls. 628 00:37:31,443 --> 00:37:33,083 We don't swear. 629 00:37:33,123 --> 00:37:37,163 And, and so we were able to create this, uh, subconscious 630 00:37:37,203 --> 00:37:41,883 landscape that is very, very, very powerful and is of that time. 631 00:37:43,483 --> 00:37:46,923 We just went all over finding all the single words 632 00:37:46,963 --> 00:37:50,483 that led the way into the rest of the subject matter. 633 00:37:50,523 --> 00:37:55,003 And we saw these big parties going on at Notting Hill Carnival. 634 00:37:56,683 --> 00:37:59,363 We came back and created, uh, Dirty Word. 635 00:38:00,123 --> 00:38:02,683 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 636 00:38:04,963 --> 00:38:08,323 Amazing to see it after all this time. 637 00:38:09,323 --> 00:38:12,923 That's Commercial Street there. Near the top of Fournier Street. 638 00:38:12,963 --> 00:38:15,523 It's the gents lavatories there. 639 00:38:15,563 --> 00:38:19,363 It's very good, because we created this immediate atmosphere, no? 640 00:38:19,403 --> 00:38:21,163 This gloomy atmosphere. 641 00:38:21,203 --> 00:38:24,083 At that time, they were done faster than now. 642 00:38:24,123 --> 00:38:26,643 The new pieces are more complex to make. 643 00:38:26,683 --> 00:38:29,323 I remember when we created the Dirty Words pictures, 644 00:38:29,363 --> 00:38:34,483 all of our friends and supporters thought that we'd gone over the top. 645 00:38:34,523 --> 00:38:36,243 That we were being childish. 646 00:38:36,283 --> 00:38:40,163 Why would you make works, works of art with just dirty words in. 647 00:38:41,403 --> 00:38:45,003 And then the years rolled on and we had the idea to- 648 00:38:45,043 --> 00:38:48,123 We showed them all together in the Serpentine Gallery. 649 00:38:48,163 --> 00:38:49,243 27 pictures. 650 00:38:49,283 --> 00:38:51,043 All together for the first time. 651 00:38:51,083 --> 00:38:54,003 Many of the people who had been against the pictures were there 652 00:38:54,043 --> 00:38:55,483 saying, "It's marvellous. 653 00:38:55,523 --> 00:38:57,883 Absolutely won- It's extraordinary. Wonderful." 654 00:38:57,923 --> 00:39:00,923 I said, "But don't you remember you were a little bit 655 00:39:00,963 --> 00:39:04,123 suspicious of-" "Oh, no, no, we've always loved them." 656 00:39:04,163 --> 00:39:07,203 Which was very good, 'cause it proves what we always believed, 657 00:39:07,243 --> 00:39:09,243 that the pictures stay the same 658 00:39:09,283 --> 00:39:11,963 and the world changes to accommodate them. 659 00:39:14,003 --> 00:39:17,643 I think we used the word "queer" for the Dirty Words pictures, 660 00:39:17,683 --> 00:39:21,803 because it was one of the words you can find written on walls. 661 00:39:21,843 --> 00:39:24,003 It was just another of those words. 662 00:39:31,563 --> 00:39:36,043 We never felt the divisionism of that time where people 663 00:39:36,083 --> 00:39:38,283 thought of gay and straight. 664 00:39:38,323 --> 00:39:40,883 We just thought life is complicated and marvellous 665 00:39:40,923 --> 00:39:45,403 and you don't have to settle down to one particular ideology in that way. 666 00:39:46,603 --> 00:39:48,883 GILBERT: It was provocative. 667 00:39:48,923 --> 00:39:53,563 And we wanted to bring it forward, open it up in front of people 668 00:39:53,603 --> 00:39:55,723 and make it actually an artwork out of it. 669 00:39:55,763 --> 00:39:59,043 Provocative yes, but it's also true that people often tell us 670 00:39:59,083 --> 00:40:02,003 about how important a picture from that time was for them 671 00:40:02,043 --> 00:40:03,803 for some personal reason. 672 00:40:03,843 --> 00:40:08,403 So w-we had all this critics and all the people against us. 673 00:40:08,443 --> 00:40:10,603 They wouldn't go near our art. 674 00:40:10,643 --> 00:40:12,123 Mostly here in England. 675 00:40:13,443 --> 00:40:15,443 Cunt and queer. 676 00:40:15,483 --> 00:40:19,603 These were words that were completely taboo 677 00:40:19,643 --> 00:40:21,683 and still are to some extent. 678 00:40:21,723 --> 00:40:26,243 So the Dirty Words pictures were incredibly controversial, 679 00:40:26,283 --> 00:40:29,603 and the art world, the art critics 680 00:40:29,643 --> 00:40:32,323 were really hostile to Gilbert and George. 681 00:40:32,363 --> 00:40:34,083 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 682 00:40:34,963 --> 00:40:37,163 GILBERT: In the end we managed to succeed. 683 00:40:37,203 --> 00:40:39,443 GEORGE: We've had a lot of help from our enemies. 684 00:40:39,483 --> 00:40:41,283 They're still around. 685 00:40:41,323 --> 00:40:44,843 Intolerance towards art and artists and writers and thinkers 686 00:40:44,883 --> 00:40:48,563 and musicians and poets has always been there, yeah. 687 00:40:48,603 --> 00:40:52,083 If you try to write an unusual poem, you'll find 688 00:40:52,123 --> 00:40:55,243 people have a problem with it immediately. Immediately. 689 00:40:55,283 --> 00:40:58,363 The whole history of culture is written with opposition. 690 00:40:58,403 --> 00:41:02,683 There were quite a lot of people against us when we did all this art. 691 00:41:02,723 --> 00:41:07,363 How many great books took three years to get it through to the publishers? 692 00:41:07,403 --> 00:41:09,323 They were never quite sure of it. 693 00:41:09,363 --> 00:41:11,763 Some of the greatest books of all time. 694 00:41:16,043 --> 00:41:19,563 They were all critical in some way, because it was something new. 695 00:41:19,603 --> 00:41:23,643 We are doing an art that visually how it looked like and what we're 696 00:41:23,683 --> 00:41:26,843 saying the art is part of us being human. 697 00:41:27,923 --> 00:41:33,123 We always believed that art or culture is thinking about what 698 00:41:33,163 --> 00:41:35,363 we're going to do with the rest of our lives. 699 00:41:35,403 --> 00:41:37,643 People read books, listen to music, 700 00:41:37,683 --> 00:41:41,683 read poetry to decide how tomorrow will be. 701 00:41:41,723 --> 00:41:45,403 And we think that our form is culture. 702 00:41:45,443 --> 00:41:48,683 The great force of culture of the free world. 703 00:41:49,683 --> 00:41:54,323 And they are going into our exhibitions to look what 704 00:41:54,363 --> 00:41:57,843 they feel, uh, in front of one of our pictures. 705 00:41:57,883 --> 00:42:01,643 Are thy pro, are they against, do they leave, don't they leave? 706 00:42:01,683 --> 00:42:07,683 But any work it is a revolution in the- in art, in some way. 707 00:42:07,723 --> 00:42:10,883 Even if they say, "What the hell am I supposed to think?" 708 00:42:10,923 --> 00:42:13,003 That's already a very good start. 709 00:42:15,843 --> 00:42:19,363 Their exhibitions, I mean, it's like breath-taking. 710 00:42:19,403 --> 00:42:23,203 My husband didn't like going to these exhibitions 711 00:42:23,243 --> 00:42:26,323 and I took him once to the Tate. 712 00:42:26,363 --> 00:42:29,163 He went, "They're geniuses. 713 00:42:29,203 --> 00:42:31,643 I'm gonna come more often with ya." 714 00:42:31,683 --> 00:42:34,123 I mean, it brought him into art. 715 00:42:34,163 --> 00:42:39,123 Gilbert and George, they're like ordinary people. But they're not. 716 00:42:41,283 --> 00:42:42,923 GEORGE: We wrote this text. 717 00:42:43,723 --> 00:42:48,363 We want our art to bring out the bigot from inside the liberal 718 00:42:48,403 --> 00:42:52,483 and conversely, to bring out the liberal from inside the bigot. 719 00:42:56,163 --> 00:42:59,243 GILBERT: We didn't go in the city to take images. 720 00:42:59,283 --> 00:43:02,323 We did our images here around Brick Lane. 721 00:43:02,363 --> 00:43:05,803 GEORGE: I think we just wanted young people in the pictures. 722 00:43:05,843 --> 00:43:08,123 They used to walk up and down Fournier Street, 723 00:43:08,163 --> 00:43:10,083 so we just went out and asked them 724 00:43:10,123 --> 00:43:12,123 if they would like to be photographed. 725 00:43:13,483 --> 00:43:17,763 We weren't thinking politically or do with pop music or culture. 726 00:43:17,803 --> 00:43:20,643 Not at all. Just other young people. 727 00:43:21,723 --> 00:43:26,643 We had a problem because of the so-called liberal left, 728 00:43:26,683 --> 00:43:29,203 were quite anti-us. I don't know why. 729 00:43:30,283 --> 00:43:31,963 When they wrote in the newspapers, 730 00:43:32,003 --> 00:43:35,603 said this was a racist picture we had to telephone in to say, 731 00:43:35,643 --> 00:43:38,843 "Did you realise that the person in the middle is obviously 732 00:43:38,883 --> 00:43:41,403 an Asian person with long hair and bell-bottomed trousers?" 733 00:43:41,443 --> 00:43:44,403 We said, "Would you mind getting a copy of it and would you look? 734 00:43:44,443 --> 00:43:45,723 I'll hang on the line." 735 00:43:45,763 --> 00:43:48,283 They were extremely embarrassed and they just said one of them 736 00:43:48,323 --> 00:43:51,123 was an Asian, another one was quite obviously a tramp, yeah? 737 00:43:51,163 --> 00:43:53,923 One maybe you could say was a skinhead, just. 738 00:43:55,683 --> 00:43:59,523 They complaining like we called all these ordinary people "Four Knights" 739 00:43:59,563 --> 00:44:01,443 and they were all anti that. 740 00:44:01,483 --> 00:44:05,603 I have no idea why, because they were just lower class boys. 741 00:44:07,763 --> 00:44:11,483 They look aggressive, no, because they are black and white and red. 742 00:44:11,523 --> 00:44:14,763 They are forceful images 743 00:44:14,803 --> 00:44:19,163 of living experiences that we had around here. 744 00:44:20,203 --> 00:44:24,083 We think the misunderstand is a problem of class. 745 00:44:24,123 --> 00:44:27,243 Because there were these middle class people writing reviews 746 00:44:27,283 --> 00:44:31,323 in posh newspapers saying why are Gilbert and George using these yobs, 747 00:44:31,363 --> 00:44:33,243 these young East End thugs? 748 00:44:33,283 --> 00:44:35,523 Well, we weren't using yobs or East End thugs. 749 00:44:35,563 --> 00:44:37,483 We were using human persons. 750 00:44:37,523 --> 00:44:39,403 We don't believe that every person 751 00:44:39,443 --> 00:44:42,363 who doesn't have such a good education as that reviewer 752 00:44:42,403 --> 00:44:46,083 should immediately be branded as something inferior. 753 00:44:46,123 --> 00:44:49,883 The liberal establishment if you like of the art world, 754 00:44:49,923 --> 00:44:52,243 uh, just found them too much. 755 00:44:52,283 --> 00:44:56,123 They weren't acceptable and I think that was, um, 756 00:44:56,163 --> 00:44:58,403 a challenge for Gilbert and George. 757 00:44:59,203 --> 00:45:03,923 But also they recognised the importance of breaking down 758 00:45:03,963 --> 00:45:09,963 this very stifling, cliquey, nepotistic world 759 00:45:10,003 --> 00:45:12,363 of art criticism and the art world. 760 00:45:14,043 --> 00:45:15,683 (COUNTDOWN BEEPING) 761 00:45:15,723 --> 00:45:20,203 We had to find our own visual language and that has evolved 762 00:45:20,243 --> 00:45:25,443 together with the meanings as our concerns change and evolve. 763 00:45:25,483 --> 00:45:30,003 So really, our pictures as a whole are not a stylistic development, 764 00:45:30,043 --> 00:45:34,163 they're a human development and evolution of a life. 765 00:45:35,283 --> 00:45:39,283 You can imagine at that time that any art that addressed 766 00:45:39,323 --> 00:45:42,643 the vast general public was regarded as an embarrassment almost. 767 00:45:42,683 --> 00:45:45,483 It had to be just for the elite few. 768 00:45:46,483 --> 00:45:50,563 We are trying to make art that we can take out in the street 769 00:45:50,603 --> 00:45:54,603 not for the specialised people, for every taxi driver, for, uh, 770 00:45:54,643 --> 00:45:56,403 every drug addict. 771 00:46:01,843 --> 00:46:05,083 The process of making them was, yeah, immensely complicated. 772 00:46:05,123 --> 00:46:06,563 It was all hand done. 773 00:46:06,603 --> 00:46:09,563 Gilbert and George were very clever in sort of developing this 774 00:46:09,603 --> 00:46:14,723 way of working where everything is cut into these manageable squares. 775 00:46:15,563 --> 00:46:17,283 GEORGE: It's a kind of discipline. 776 00:46:17,323 --> 00:46:19,843 We can't compose the picture entirely as we want, 777 00:46:19,883 --> 00:46:22,803 because of the grids and, and we rather like that. 778 00:46:22,843 --> 00:46:25,363 GILBERT: And it is our signature in some way. 779 00:46:25,403 --> 00:46:28,323 People can realise it's one of our pictures even a mile away 780 00:46:28,363 --> 00:46:30,163 without seeing the subject. 781 00:46:31,403 --> 00:46:34,203 We're not trained as picture makers, 782 00:46:34,243 --> 00:46:36,363 so we started it with just black and white, 783 00:46:36,403 --> 00:46:38,403 because the negative is black and white. 784 00:46:38,443 --> 00:46:40,683 We had to teach ourself how to make them. 785 00:46:40,723 --> 00:46:42,923 There was no system out there. 786 00:46:43,923 --> 00:46:46,803 So we invented ways of making art. 787 00:46:48,443 --> 00:46:50,043 First we take images. 788 00:46:50,843 --> 00:46:55,203 For three or four months, we take images that speak to us 789 00:46:55,243 --> 00:46:56,803 and our time, hmm? 790 00:46:56,843 --> 00:47:00,283 And then we're making a composition 791 00:47:00,323 --> 00:47:04,163 and a design how the picture should be. 792 00:47:04,963 --> 00:47:07,483 And they're just layers. 793 00:47:08,403 --> 00:47:11,563 When we were actually making the pictures, 794 00:47:11,603 --> 00:47:14,003 all of the panels were blank. 795 00:47:15,043 --> 00:47:19,603 We just put one image on top of each other until it is finished, no? 796 00:47:19,643 --> 00:47:21,243 So having shot the first image in 797 00:47:21,283 --> 00:47:24,243 and actually printed that on to it although we can't see it, 798 00:47:24,283 --> 00:47:25,803 the paper will still be white. 799 00:47:25,843 --> 00:47:29,243 We have to make a positive image of that figure to put over it 800 00:47:29,283 --> 00:47:32,443 in order to expose the next subject next to it. 801 00:47:33,363 --> 00:47:35,683 We had to project it on the wall. 802 00:47:35,723 --> 00:47:39,363 All in bits, one, two, three, four, five. 803 00:47:39,403 --> 00:47:43,603 Like 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 layers on top of each other. 804 00:47:43,643 --> 00:47:47,803 We were like one year in the darkroom day and night. 805 00:47:49,163 --> 00:47:51,523 It was very, very complicated. 806 00:47:51,563 --> 00:47:54,243 Yes, we had to be very straight. (LAUGHS) 807 00:47:54,283 --> 00:47:57,323 You had to be, you know, top and bottom and left and right. 808 00:47:57,363 --> 00:47:58,363 And be very strict. 809 00:47:58,403 --> 00:48:02,123 And after even the colouration was all done separate, no? 810 00:48:02,163 --> 00:48:06,323 But the end result was always the most important part of it. 811 00:48:06,363 --> 00:48:09,643 We start with the palest colour first. 812 00:48:09,683 --> 00:48:12,603 Yes, and so what is not going to have that colour 813 00:48:12,643 --> 00:48:16,523 is going to be protected with this gum that we are painting on. 814 00:48:16,563 --> 00:48:20,643 So the main figure could be flesh colour and this would remain white. 815 00:48:20,683 --> 00:48:24,763 We go through all the colours and one day they're all finished. 816 00:48:26,243 --> 00:48:29,923 Unlike children or artists or amateur painters, 817 00:48:29,963 --> 00:48:33,603 we didn't start with a box of crayons or coloured pencils. 818 00:48:33,643 --> 00:48:36,243 We didn't have any colour. We had a black- 819 00:48:36,283 --> 00:48:38,083 Black and white. Black and white. 820 00:48:38,123 --> 00:48:40,323 Yeah, and it took us four years to find red. 821 00:48:41,443 --> 00:48:44,443 Because it felt that it was connected with anger, 822 00:48:44,483 --> 00:48:47,203 to do with love, to do with blood, to do with danger, 823 00:48:47,243 --> 00:48:49,243 to do with communism, to do with fear. 824 00:48:49,283 --> 00:48:51,443 And we felt we could use red in different ways 825 00:48:51,483 --> 00:48:53,283 to add to the black and white. 826 00:48:56,683 --> 00:48:59,803 In 1980, we started to have these four, five different colours. 827 00:48:59,843 --> 00:49:03,003 Now blue, yellow and green. 828 00:49:03,043 --> 00:49:05,963 Our colours are based on the meanings, 829 00:49:06,003 --> 00:49:10,043 like we always used to say the yellow had a sophistication. 830 00:49:10,083 --> 00:49:13,163 And like red is anger more and blue is more, 831 00:49:13,203 --> 00:49:16,163 I don't know like, eternity. 832 00:49:20,123 --> 00:49:23,683 We had this amazing piece in the Tate Britain. 833 00:49:23,723 --> 00:49:25,563 Drunk with God. 834 00:49:26,643 --> 00:49:31,283 And not a lot of artists have done pictures on the subject of God, have they? 835 00:49:35,283 --> 00:49:39,883 We like to include religion in the pictures and church and faith. 836 00:49:39,923 --> 00:49:43,403 Not to be the superior artists who don't bother with that. 837 00:49:43,443 --> 00:49:47,523 Even when I've been running away from religion for five years. 838 00:49:47,563 --> 00:49:48,723 (LAUGHS) 839 00:49:50,963 --> 00:49:53,683 I mean, I was brought up a Catholic, no? 840 00:49:53,723 --> 00:49:55,923 And it took me a long time to get rid of it. 841 00:49:56,843 --> 00:49:59,963 Art school did a good job for me. (LAUGHS) 842 00:50:00,003 --> 00:50:02,123 To get rid of that. 843 00:50:02,163 --> 00:50:03,683 I like to be free. 844 00:50:08,443 --> 00:50:13,443 We just didn't want to be the sophisticated atheist common 845 00:50:13,483 --> 00:50:15,523 blind modern artist. 846 00:50:15,563 --> 00:50:19,123 It'd be silly to pretend that there's no such thing as god 847 00:50:19,163 --> 00:50:21,003 and no such thing as an afterlife 848 00:50:21,043 --> 00:50:23,123 when there are so many people talking about it 849 00:50:23,163 --> 00:50:25,883 and writing books and movies and poems about it. 850 00:50:25,923 --> 00:50:28,003 It would be daft to ignore that. 851 00:50:29,083 --> 00:50:32,123 All the church are standing in front of you every single day 852 00:50:32,163 --> 00:50:34,083 if you like it or not, hmm? 853 00:50:34,123 --> 00:50:37,163 We all come out of an amazing tradition. 854 00:50:37,203 --> 00:50:40,763 We would say ourselves that we're probably 855 00:50:40,803 --> 00:50:44,443 Greco Romano Judeo Christian, 856 00:50:44,483 --> 00:50:49,003 spiritualistic, voodoo secularists roughly speaking. 857 00:50:49,843 --> 00:50:53,923 But that's all part of the amazing group of people and feelings. 858 00:50:56,123 --> 00:51:00,803 I see them as being in a tradition of art which 859 00:51:00,843 --> 00:51:04,883 deals with important human concerns. 860 00:51:04,923 --> 00:51:06,923 It's disturbing. 861 00:51:06,963 --> 00:51:09,923 And I happen to hold the view that one of the functions of art 862 00:51:09,963 --> 00:51:11,283 is to disturb. 863 00:51:11,323 --> 00:51:16,443 Certainly, I think their art touches often on deep psychological elements. 864 00:51:16,483 --> 00:51:18,323 Human beings are religious creatures. 865 00:51:18,363 --> 00:51:21,163 They have always invented religions for themselves. 866 00:51:21,203 --> 00:51:25,523 They need to worship something. It's very fundamental. 867 00:51:25,563 --> 00:51:29,723 And if an artist can successfully connect his art to 868 00:51:29,763 --> 00:51:33,003 this religious impulse, then he makes his art more powerful. 869 00:51:37,043 --> 00:51:40,203 GEORGE: We all said the new world was not created by the policemen, 870 00:51:40,243 --> 00:51:41,803 it wasn't created by the vicar, 871 00:51:41,843 --> 00:51:44,763 it was created by the music and the novels 872 00:51:44,803 --> 00:51:48,123 and the pictures and the theatre and the ballet and the opera. 873 00:51:48,163 --> 00:51:50,523 They made us safe and free. 874 00:51:52,083 --> 00:51:54,043 We wouldn't say that our art is our religion, 875 00:51:54,083 --> 00:51:57,003 because we believe that religion is the enemy. 876 00:51:57,763 --> 00:51:59,603 The vicar has been the enemy. 877 00:52:00,563 --> 00:52:06,483 Art has been uninvolved in, uh, depicting God for 1,000 years. 878 00:52:07,683 --> 00:52:10,123 Collaborators...Yes. ..we call them. 879 00:52:11,963 --> 00:52:16,043 (RHYTHMIC BEATS) 880 00:52:18,963 --> 00:52:22,803 When we did the banners, uh, one of them said ban religion. 881 00:52:24,203 --> 00:52:26,923 Then there was a mysterious knock at our front door. 882 00:52:26,963 --> 00:52:29,643 And there was an elderly clergyman and he said, 883 00:52:29,683 --> 00:52:31,483 "I'm awfully sorry to trouble you. 884 00:52:31,523 --> 00:52:34,043 I don't want to disturb you or intrude in any way. 885 00:52:34,083 --> 00:52:37,203 I just want to tell you I saw that thing you, you- ban religion, is it? 886 00:52:37,243 --> 00:52:40,163 I think it's marvellous, absolutely marvellous." 887 00:52:40,203 --> 00:52:45,003 We thanked him and we said perhaps he could tell us a little why he was so pleased for it. 888 00:52:45,043 --> 00:52:47,203 He said, "Oh it's really simple," he said. 889 00:52:47,243 --> 00:52:49,723 "I have my congregation, it's nearly 40 years now. 890 00:52:49,763 --> 00:52:51,243 All very nice people. 891 00:52:51,283 --> 00:52:54,723 The thing is they come to church on Sunday 'cause they're all religious 892 00:52:54,763 --> 00:52:56,643 and I don't really want them to be religious. 893 00:52:56,683 --> 00:52:58,083 I want them to be good." 894 00:53:00,563 --> 00:53:02,563 (PENSIVE MUSIC) 895 00:53:04,083 --> 00:53:06,443 (TRAFFIC AMBIENCE) 896 00:53:06,483 --> 00:53:08,723 (SIREN WAILS) 897 00:53:15,963 --> 00:53:18,283 You knew everyone in Brick Lane. 898 00:53:18,323 --> 00:53:22,323 Brick Lane was all Indians, you knew everyone down there. 899 00:53:23,403 --> 00:53:26,523 I was going to get my husband's curry. I don't eat curry. 900 00:53:26,563 --> 00:53:29,603 And, you know, I used to sit on the chair 901 00:53:29,643 --> 00:53:32,403 and I'd have a glass of champagne. 902 00:53:32,443 --> 00:53:36,923 Eat a whole box of After Eights while I was waiting for Den's curry. 903 00:53:38,803 --> 00:53:41,523 GEORGE: When we moved there first, it was Yiddish speaking. 904 00:53:41,563 --> 00:53:43,643 Some Polish speaking, Russian speaking. 905 00:53:43,683 --> 00:53:46,003 Then it became Maltese, 906 00:53:46,043 --> 00:53:50,163 then it became Somali, then the Bangladeshi and now it's city boys. 907 00:53:50,203 --> 00:53:53,283 We've seen them, the synagogue turn into a mosque. 908 00:53:53,323 --> 00:53:57,563 We've seen the Jewish off licence turn into a Hindi music centre. 909 00:53:57,603 --> 00:54:00,483 We even see the gents public lavatories on Whitechapel 910 00:54:00,523 --> 00:54:02,403 turn into an Indian restaurant. 911 00:54:02,443 --> 00:54:04,843 Some young, young friends were recommending it to us. 912 00:54:04,883 --> 00:54:07,723 They said it's very good food and the service is fantastic. 913 00:54:07,763 --> 00:54:11,483 And it's eat in or take away. I said it always was. (LAUGHTER) 914 00:54:14,723 --> 00:54:16,163 (DISCO MUSIC) 915 00:54:17,123 --> 00:54:19,323 It was exciting time to be in London 916 00:54:19,363 --> 00:54:22,043 and to be gay in London in the early 1980s. 917 00:54:22,083 --> 00:54:23,723 There was a, you know, 918 00:54:23,763 --> 00:54:26,523 a real sense that there were you know there was a kind of movement 919 00:54:26,563 --> 00:54:29,643 happening and things were opening up. 920 00:54:29,683 --> 00:54:32,603 It was also a very, very small world. 921 00:54:32,643 --> 00:54:35,083 Everybody kind of knew each other. 922 00:54:35,123 --> 00:54:38,243 David Robilliard was this, uh, 923 00:54:38,283 --> 00:54:43,883 amazing kind of, um, hyper poet. 924 00:54:43,923 --> 00:54:45,483 I am angry. 925 00:54:45,523 --> 00:54:48,363 David was in our film, The World With Gilbert And George. 926 00:54:48,403 --> 00:54:49,403 I am angry. 927 00:54:49,443 --> 00:54:52,123 David says, "I am angry, I am angry."I am angry. 928 00:54:52,163 --> 00:54:54,243 We told him he must smile at the same time. 929 00:54:54,283 --> 00:54:55,283 I am angry. 930 00:54:57,283 --> 00:54:58,363 I am angry. 931 00:54:59,123 --> 00:55:01,603 One night in the London Apprentice he said to me, 932 00:55:01,643 --> 00:55:03,763 "Oh, would you like to do some modelling 933 00:55:03,803 --> 00:55:06,003 for these artists, Gilbert and George?" 934 00:55:06,043 --> 00:55:07,923 Who I didn't know a great deal about. 935 00:55:07,963 --> 00:55:09,483 I did, had heard of them. 936 00:55:09,523 --> 00:55:11,123 Um, but I didn't know much about them. 937 00:55:11,163 --> 00:55:12,643 So I thought, well, yeah sure. 938 00:55:12,683 --> 00:55:15,123 I was a student at the time and I think, you know, 939 00:55:15,163 --> 00:55:17,363 it was £20 was being offered. 940 00:55:18,163 --> 00:55:23,283 Gilbert and George were doing these huge big pictures with 941 00:55:23,323 --> 00:55:26,083 maybe 15, 20 young men. 942 00:55:26,123 --> 00:55:29,443 So, um, yeah, they needed lots of people to come and model for them. 943 00:55:29,483 --> 00:55:32,203 So they had quite a system going, you know. 944 00:55:33,563 --> 00:55:37,003 We wanted to fill the picture with young people. 945 00:55:37,043 --> 00:55:39,763 So we put one, two, three, four, five, six, seven in the picture 946 00:55:39,803 --> 00:55:41,483 and we thought that's not enough. 947 00:55:41,523 --> 00:55:43,723 We want some more, if we have more in front, 948 00:55:43,763 --> 00:55:46,723 then we'll hide them, so we'll have them kneeling down. 949 00:55:46,763 --> 00:55:48,243 And they can still see. 950 00:55:48,283 --> 00:55:50,683 That wasn't enough so we put one, two, three, four, five, 951 00:55:50,723 --> 00:55:51,923 six in the sky. 952 00:55:51,963 --> 00:55:55,803 So it's loaded down with youth and hope. 953 00:55:57,723 --> 00:56:00,923 I went into the studio at the back of Gilbert and George's house 954 00:56:00,963 --> 00:56:02,363 and I met them. 955 00:56:02,403 --> 00:56:05,683 Then they took lots of photos and we chatted. 956 00:56:05,723 --> 00:56:08,643 I was a film student just graduating, I think, 957 00:56:08,683 --> 00:56:10,603 from the Royal College of Art 958 00:56:10,643 --> 00:56:13,243 and, uh, while they were taking pictures, 959 00:56:13,283 --> 00:56:16,963 just sort of said to them, "Well, seeing as you've photographed me, 960 00:56:17,003 --> 00:56:19,043 how about I film you?" 961 00:56:20,203 --> 00:56:23,563 After I'd done the modelling, there was an opening of a- 962 00:56:23,603 --> 00:56:27,963 of the exhibition and there was a huge great big picture entitled 963 00:56:28,003 --> 00:56:34,003 "See", which, um, I was really quite sort of overwhelmed by. 964 00:56:35,283 --> 00:56:37,523 Gilbert and George lying at my feet 965 00:56:37,563 --> 00:56:41,123 and these two big eyes and being called See 966 00:56:41,163 --> 00:56:43,283 seemed so kind of appropriate 967 00:56:43,323 --> 00:56:46,603 seeing as I had by that point already embarked on 968 00:56:46,643 --> 00:56:49,123 potentially making a film about them. 969 00:56:49,163 --> 00:56:52,843 But I never had a kind of end date or a, you know, 970 00:56:52,883 --> 00:56:55,323 it wasn't a sort of commissioned film or anything. 971 00:56:55,363 --> 00:56:58,763 So, I was just scrabbling together to get whatever money I could 972 00:56:58,803 --> 00:57:02,323 with my little camera (LAUGHS) to film what I could, you know. 973 00:57:02,363 --> 00:57:05,363 And it just went on like that for 17 years. 974 00:57:05,403 --> 00:57:07,323 I am Gilbert. 975 00:57:07,363 --> 00:57:09,043 And I am George. 976 00:57:09,883 --> 00:57:11,603 We are... 977 00:57:11,643 --> 00:57:13,643 Gilbert.And George. 978 00:57:14,803 --> 00:57:18,283 I was just very happy to listen to them, really. 979 00:57:18,323 --> 00:57:24,003 In a way, I didn't really want the film to come to an end, actually. (LAUGHS) 980 00:57:24,043 --> 00:57:26,283 GILBERT: And then AIDS came along. 981 00:57:28,003 --> 00:57:31,003 NARRATOR: AIDS is new, and at the present rate of progress, 982 00:57:31,043 --> 00:57:34,723 there are ten times as many men with AIDS every two years. 983 00:57:36,243 --> 00:57:38,403 GILBERT: A lot of our friends died. 984 00:57:40,963 --> 00:57:44,043 GEORGE: We were surrounded by young, younger friends 985 00:57:44,083 --> 00:57:45,923 who were diagnosed with AIDS. 986 00:57:46,923 --> 00:57:49,283 David, David Robilliard... 987 00:57:50,843 --> 00:57:52,803 ..and Andrew Heard, 988 00:57:52,843 --> 00:57:56,483 who was an artist just started to make his own pictures. 989 00:57:59,523 --> 00:58:01,963 GEORGE: When I filmed "The World of Gilbert and George," 990 00:58:02,003 --> 00:58:06,243 Andrew says repeatedly, "I am a young man, I am a young man." 991 00:58:07,643 --> 00:58:09,203 I am a young man. 992 00:58:11,683 --> 00:58:15,603 And of course he always was a young man, he never will be anything else. 993 00:58:16,603 --> 00:58:19,683 So many in New York died, so many people in Europe. 994 00:58:19,723 --> 00:58:23,243 Was a, a huge nightmare, and a living nightmare. 995 00:58:24,923 --> 00:58:27,363 They were there and they were not there. 996 00:58:37,083 --> 00:58:39,763 Gilbert and George wanted to do their bit 997 00:58:39,803 --> 00:58:42,163 in terms of raising money to help people. 998 00:58:42,203 --> 00:58:45,603 So they did the For AIDS show in 1989 999 00:58:45,643 --> 00:58:50,443 where all the proceeds went to an AIDS charity. 1000 00:58:51,203 --> 00:58:53,603 It was quite a big exhibition, big show. 1001 00:58:55,443 --> 00:58:59,883 GILBERT: We had this idea maybe we could make a group of pictures. 1002 00:58:59,923 --> 00:59:01,283 GEORGE: Something. 1003 00:59:01,323 --> 00:59:05,643 Something towards trying to find a cure. 1004 00:59:05,683 --> 00:59:09,483 And we even arranged a big dinner and the whole art world... 1005 00:59:09,523 --> 00:59:12,643 GEORGE: Came in from all, all over the world for it. 1006 00:59:14,003 --> 00:59:19,003 GILBERT: In 1975 to 1980, 85, we did many pieces to do with death. 1007 00:59:19,043 --> 00:59:22,203 Death, Hope, Life, Fear and Death Phase and Body Life. 1008 00:59:22,243 --> 00:59:24,563 Dead Heads. Dead Head, Dead Bored. 1009 00:59:24,603 --> 00:59:27,123 But when they started to die, we stopped. 1010 00:59:27,963 --> 00:59:30,723 We never mentioned that word again, in fact. 1011 00:59:31,803 --> 00:59:35,363 I think it is very, very clear in our pictures without having 1012 00:59:35,403 --> 00:59:37,323 to be spelt out as it used to be. 1013 00:59:37,363 --> 00:59:39,963 We think even the New Horny pictures we did 1014 00:59:40,003 --> 00:59:43,603 are like huge Lutyen cemeteries on the Somme or something. 1015 00:59:43,643 --> 00:59:46,843 All of those boys advertising the magazines. 1016 00:59:46,883 --> 00:59:51,843 It is like tombstones, the age and there were a little story what they did. 1017 00:59:51,883 --> 00:59:57,203 One day all of them will be dead and then it will be like a huge memorial to those people. 1018 01:00:06,403 --> 01:00:09,123 GEORGE: A lot of people think that we create an art 1019 01:00:09,163 --> 01:00:10,643 in the East End of London 1020 01:00:10,683 --> 01:00:13,643 and maybe it's a little bit to do with the East End of London 1021 01:00:13,683 --> 01:00:17,243 or we're artists like we are, because of the East End of London. 1022 01:00:17,283 --> 01:00:19,323 But when we wake up in the morning, 1023 01:00:19,363 --> 01:00:21,443 we always feel we wake up in the world. 1024 01:00:21,483 --> 01:00:25,003 I never feel we wake up in Spitalfields or wake up in Fournier Street. 1025 01:00:25,043 --> 01:00:29,963 We always feel that we're in the world every single moment. 1026 01:00:30,843 --> 01:00:34,563 We get up in the mornings and buy a newspaper. 1027 01:00:35,363 --> 01:00:40,003 And before going for dinner, we watch the television news. 1028 01:00:40,043 --> 01:00:42,443 And we have a very clear feeling 1029 01:00:42,483 --> 01:00:46,883 of the world turning beneath our feet around. 1030 01:00:46,923 --> 01:00:49,803 And the the pain with which it turns 1031 01:00:49,843 --> 01:00:52,323 and the joy with which it turns as well. 1032 01:00:52,363 --> 01:00:56,243 And all, all of that is what we're thinking, feeling, hoping, 1033 01:00:56,283 --> 01:00:58,043 dreading, loving about. 1034 01:01:11,083 --> 01:01:15,323 They were organising a big exhibition in Moscow. 1035 01:01:17,443 --> 01:01:23,323 It was a real coup to get this agreed by the Russian authorities 1036 01:01:23,363 --> 01:01:28,163 and to have got the main kind of art gallery in Moscow 1037 01:01:28,203 --> 01:01:30,203 to host the exhibition. 1038 01:01:31,323 --> 01:01:33,723 The motto was always, "art for all," 1039 01:01:33,763 --> 01:01:39,083 so we thought let's try out Moscow, test our theory. 1040 01:01:39,123 --> 01:01:41,523 We spent nearly all our money doing it. 1041 01:01:43,443 --> 01:01:47,843 It was a real adventure to drop this big shows 1042 01:01:47,883 --> 01:01:50,923 in the middle of a communist country, hmm? 1043 01:01:50,963 --> 01:01:54,043 Russia was nearly totally collapsing, 1044 01:01:54,083 --> 01:01:57,083 the old system was collapsing, so they were very poor. 1045 01:01:57,123 --> 01:01:59,803 We had to take everything to Russia. 1046 01:01:59,843 --> 01:02:03,923 The nails, the food, the champagne for the party. 1047 01:02:03,963 --> 01:02:07,963 And the paint for the walls and was extraordinary. 1048 01:02:09,123 --> 01:02:12,963 The British consul tried to stop the exhibition 1049 01:02:13,003 --> 01:02:16,163 and I think they had other ideas, other abstract more middle 1050 01:02:16,203 --> 01:02:19,323 class ideas of how Britain should be represented. 1051 01:02:20,483 --> 01:02:26,083 They were just really wanting to take their work to this whole 1052 01:02:26,123 --> 01:02:27,643 new audience, 1053 01:02:27,683 --> 01:02:31,803 who had hardly seen contemporary Western art, 1054 01:02:31,843 --> 01:02:34,163 let alone Gilbert and George's work. 1055 01:02:35,203 --> 01:02:37,763 Russia was amazing success. 1056 01:02:38,843 --> 01:02:42,203 You don't have to be an art expert to see our pictures. 1057 01:02:42,243 --> 01:02:44,723 We want them just to be able to feel them, 1058 01:02:44,763 --> 01:02:47,923 to feel the emotion of that picture and that's it. 1059 01:02:47,963 --> 01:02:51,443 From this experience we realised that we can go 1060 01:02:51,483 --> 01:02:53,043 anywhere in the world. 1061 01:02:54,203 --> 01:02:56,683 And preach our idea of art. 1062 01:02:56,723 --> 01:02:58,563 I said to Gilbert and George, 1063 01:02:58,603 --> 01:03:01,043 you know where would you like to go next? 1064 01:03:01,843 --> 01:03:03,963 China, it has to be China. 1065 01:03:04,003 --> 01:03:08,043 The totally unknown country that must be a dream. 1066 01:03:09,363 --> 01:03:14,123 When we went to Beijing they already had people who copied us, no, 1067 01:03:14,163 --> 01:03:16,923 doing living sculptures all over the place. 1068 01:03:16,963 --> 01:03:18,643 Young people coming up to us 1069 01:03:18,683 --> 01:03:22,643 with blood running down their heads saying, "I am living sculpture." 1070 01:03:22,683 --> 01:03:25,723 Hand in hand on the Great Wall. It's amazing. 1071 01:03:25,763 --> 01:03:26,923 (LAUGHS) 1072 01:03:26,963 --> 01:03:30,563 They made us walk up the steps of the Great Wall of China. 1073 01:03:30,603 --> 01:03:31,603 Oops. (LAUGHS) 1074 01:03:32,723 --> 01:03:38,443 (LAUGHING) 1075 01:03:41,643 --> 01:03:44,963 You want to do it. It's the feeling of skiing. 1076 01:03:45,003 --> 01:03:50,603 We, as unhappy artists, are very happy to be able to hold 1077 01:03:50,643 --> 01:03:54,763 an exhibition of our pictures in China. 1078 01:03:56,123 --> 01:03:59,683 Our art fights for love and tolerance 1079 01:03:59,723 --> 01:04:03,763 and in universal elaboration of the individual. 1080 01:04:03,803 --> 01:04:06,563 In Beijing, when Gilbert and George arrived 1081 01:04:06,603 --> 01:04:09,283 they get mobbed by people wanting, uh, their autographs. 1082 01:04:09,323 --> 01:04:14,163 Even to the case where they have to call in two security art police to protect them. 1083 01:04:14,203 --> 01:04:17,643 GEORGE: We were literally mobbed. We had to be rescued from the crowd. 1084 01:04:17,683 --> 01:04:21,443 GILBERT: Because they never saw something like that before. 1085 01:04:21,483 --> 01:04:25,603 They have developed a poetry, a visual language which can 1086 01:04:25,643 --> 01:04:29,283 speak across cultures, can speak to anybody. 1087 01:04:31,083 --> 01:04:33,403 (IN CHINESE) 1088 01:05:09,883 --> 01:05:11,003 Say "when". 1089 01:05:11,043 --> 01:05:16,403 GILBERT: China was in some way more liberal, more open and more modern. 1090 01:05:17,443 --> 01:05:21,763 It took an enormous amount of money to put on these shows 1091 01:05:21,803 --> 01:05:25,443 which wasn't paid for by the British government or the Chinese government 1092 01:05:25,483 --> 01:05:26,963 or the Arts Council. 1093 01:05:27,003 --> 01:05:29,923 It was hundreds of thousands of pounds to ship all the work 1094 01:05:29,963 --> 01:05:34,763 out there, ship all the catalogues of the show to sell very cheaply, 1095 01:05:34,803 --> 01:05:39,523 so that ordinary Chinese people could afford to buy a catalogue. 1096 01:05:39,563 --> 01:05:43,243 A catalogue is ten yuan, it was equivalent to a pound 1097 01:05:43,283 --> 01:05:47,203 and it probably cost you know eight times that much to print. 1098 01:05:48,563 --> 01:05:50,883 GILBERT: Our art is human. 1099 01:05:50,923 --> 01:05:53,883 It speaks to people, it's not abstract, 1100 01:05:53,923 --> 01:05:58,043 it's a humanity inside our art in a big way. 1101 01:05:59,003 --> 01:06:01,723 INTERVIEWER: So does the viewer complete the artwork? 1102 01:06:01,763 --> 01:06:05,283 Yes I think that's very important. (TALKING OVER EACH OTHER) 1103 01:06:05,323 --> 01:06:07,363 GEORGE: We all said that our definition was 1104 01:06:07,403 --> 01:06:11,323 the friendship that is formed between the viewer and the art. 1105 01:06:12,723 --> 01:06:14,523 Amongst the naked shit pictures, 1106 01:06:14,563 --> 01:06:17,123 the most recent group of pictures we made there's one called 1107 01:06:17,163 --> 01:06:20,603 Bumholes which is a portrait of ourselves we've taken from the back. 1108 01:06:20,643 --> 01:06:23,803 And that's the favourite picture of ladies.All the ladies 1109 01:06:23,843 --> 01:06:25,923 Isn't that interesting? It's because they feel- 1110 01:06:25,963 --> 01:06:28,043 Enormous support for that picture from ladies. 1111 01:06:28,083 --> 01:06:30,803 And, uh, they told us b- why because they, 1112 01:06:30,843 --> 01:06:33,603 they feel vulnerable like we feel vulnerable. 1113 01:06:35,523 --> 01:06:39,203 GEORGE: For many, many years, we've always responded to people who 1114 01:06:39,243 --> 01:06:40,923 say that we set out to shock. 1115 01:06:40,963 --> 01:06:43,523 We always said we never wanted to shock. 1116 01:06:43,563 --> 01:06:46,363 As artists, our job is to de-shock. 1117 01:06:46,403 --> 01:06:48,563 I think we've de-shocked a lot. 1118 01:06:49,803 --> 01:06:52,963 GILBERT: Like nakedness. Why is it shocking? 1119 01:06:53,003 --> 01:06:56,043 When you did the Naked Shit pictures, 1120 01:06:56,083 --> 01:07:00,203 when you appeared in them naked, was that difficult to do? 1121 01:07:00,243 --> 01:07:03,323 Of course. The same as it would be for anybody else. 1122 01:07:03,363 --> 01:07:05,123 Yes, it was quite difficult. 1123 01:07:05,163 --> 01:07:06,203 Try it. (LAUGHS) 1124 01:07:07,283 --> 01:07:11,363 Everyone knows how vulnerable life is, 1125 01:07:11,403 --> 01:07:13,443 how delicate everything is. 1126 01:07:13,483 --> 01:07:15,803 And a lot of people saw it in that way. 1127 01:07:18,123 --> 01:07:24,043 For them to expose themselves, and really to kind of be their age 1128 01:07:24,083 --> 01:07:28,843 and to show their bodies, it's something actually quite tender. 1129 01:07:28,883 --> 01:07:31,483 And I expected it to be more brutal. 1130 01:07:32,563 --> 01:07:37,123 MAN: David Sylvester, I think, regarded rightly as the greatest 1131 01:07:37,163 --> 01:07:40,323 of the art critics, he once said, most artists this century 1132 01:07:40,363 --> 01:07:45,003 have tried to do naked and have only succeeded in doing nude. 1133 01:07:45,043 --> 01:07:48,203 Gilbert and George have done naked. 1134 01:07:48,243 --> 01:07:50,283 GEORGE: Yes it was very perceptive of David. 1135 01:07:50,323 --> 01:07:52,723 'Cause very few people realised it, and I think we did an art 1136 01:07:52,763 --> 01:07:55,603 that the viewer felt they could trust us, that we 1137 01:07:55,643 --> 01:08:00,123 weren't looking down at the viewer, that it was an experience together. 1138 01:08:01,923 --> 01:08:06,323 They've always wanted to challenge people, they want people to think. 1139 01:08:06,363 --> 01:08:09,163 They like to sort of push things, 1140 01:08:09,203 --> 01:08:12,523 and poke and prod. 1141 01:08:12,563 --> 01:08:16,723 But not to the point where people will turn away. 1142 01:08:16,763 --> 01:08:21,563 Or be terribly offended, so that they just won't engage. 1143 01:08:21,603 --> 01:08:24,963 Because obviously that was- it would be self-defeating. 1144 01:08:25,003 --> 01:08:27,363 GEORGE: It was in the South London gallery. 1145 01:08:27,403 --> 01:08:29,563 It wasn't in the Hayward, it wasn't in the Serpentine, 1146 01:08:29,603 --> 01:08:31,483 it wasn't in the Tate. 1147 01:08:31,523 --> 01:08:34,523 It was a gallery that had two or three visitors a day 1148 01:08:34,563 --> 01:08:37,083 until the Naked Shit pictures arrived. 1149 01:08:37,123 --> 01:08:40,083 GILBERT: It was like, 1,000 people a day. 1150 01:08:40,123 --> 01:08:42,923 Can you imagine getting 1,000 people a day down there? 1151 01:08:42,963 --> 01:08:44,123 Out of the blue? 1152 01:08:44,163 --> 01:08:46,803 The Naked Shit pictures, 1153 01:08:46,843 --> 01:08:49,963 if they were shown today, would still create quite a stir. 1154 01:08:50,003 --> 01:08:55,203 They're tackling an aspect of life which is very rarely tackled. 1155 01:08:55,243 --> 01:08:57,843 Notin a crude way, in a very delicate way. 1156 01:08:57,883 --> 01:09:00,643 We think they're extraordinary pictures. 1157 01:09:00,683 --> 01:09:05,363 It's just classic Gilbert and George really just stick them up there, 1158 01:09:05,403 --> 01:09:09,563 huge larger than life turds. 1159 01:09:09,603 --> 01:09:14,003 And, um, make them into somehow these beautiful things. 1160 01:09:14,043 --> 01:09:16,243 You know, um... (LAUGHS) 1161 01:09:16,283 --> 01:09:19,523 GEORGE: We think that the subject matter that we took, 1162 01:09:19,563 --> 01:09:24,123 we were able to go deeper inside a humanistic idea. 1163 01:09:24,163 --> 01:09:27,963 We can become closer to the viewer on different levels. 1164 01:09:28,003 --> 01:09:30,443 He or she will be shitting at some point during that day. 1165 01:09:30,483 --> 01:09:32,243 They will be going to the lavatory. 1166 01:09:32,283 --> 01:09:35,043 They will be conscious of illness, they will be conscious of blood. 1167 01:09:35,083 --> 01:09:36,163 Everyone is. 1168 01:09:36,203 --> 01:09:38,243 Everyone sees it in the newspapers in their life, 1169 01:09:38,283 --> 01:09:41,163 in their bedrooms, in their bathrooms, and we can get closer 1170 01:09:41,203 --> 01:09:45,123 to the person on a human level by extending the range of contact. 1171 01:09:45,163 --> 01:09:47,803 Yes, and we did do it before in...Always. 1172 01:09:47,843 --> 01:09:50,963 In '75, we did, uh, this piece called "Coming" 1173 01:09:51,003 --> 01:09:54,443 and we did this piece called "Shitted" and a lot of other pieces. 1174 01:09:54,483 --> 01:09:59,403 But I think this time we were able to make some visually 1175 01:09:59,443 --> 01:10:03,963 very beautiful, and even through the blood piece that we did in the 1176 01:10:04,003 --> 01:10:07,843 Four Eight's piece, we realised that all this fluid 1177 01:10:07,883 --> 01:10:12,043 that are part of us, no, if you start to look through them, 1178 01:10:12,083 --> 01:10:16,963 you see the most beautiful- the most beautiful life is in front of you. 1179 01:10:17,003 --> 01:10:22,003 This is the formula for shit brown that we made in '74... 1180 01:10:22,043 --> 01:10:24,403 Yes, it took us one day to- 1181 01:10:24,443 --> 01:10:26,883 One whole day to get the right- The right colour. 1182 01:10:26,923 --> 01:10:29,083 We used to call it George Michael shit, no? 1183 01:10:29,123 --> 01:10:31,683 George Michael's arse brown, we called it. 1184 01:10:31,723 --> 01:10:33,283 Glistening highlights. 1185 01:10:34,163 --> 01:10:39,243 Part of their, their thing really is bringing out these things that- 1186 01:10:39,283 --> 01:10:45,123 that nobody el- nobody looks at, the stuff that's ignored or forgotten or despised. 1187 01:10:45,163 --> 01:10:48,963 And they sort of bring these things to the fore 1188 01:10:49,003 --> 01:10:54,603 and put them on these huge grand beautiful amazing colourful pictures 1189 01:10:54,643 --> 01:11:00,123 and they somehow transform this detritus of society into 1190 01:11:00,163 --> 01:11:02,043 being kind of amazing beautiful sayings. 1191 01:11:02,083 --> 01:11:05,123 There's something very magical in that process. 1192 01:11:06,923 --> 01:11:10,083 GEORGE: Blood, tears, spunk, piss. GILBERT: Yeah. 1193 01:11:10,123 --> 01:11:14,083 We used to take images of the drops of rain on the cars 1194 01:11:14,123 --> 01:11:16,803 outside our house on Fournier Street 'cause you could see 1195 01:11:16,843 --> 01:11:20,323 the world in every single drop if you look very closely. 1196 01:11:20,363 --> 01:11:25,723 And then we thought we should take some images of that same 1197 01:11:25,763 --> 01:11:29,763 rainwater to see if there's anything in there with the microscope. 1198 01:11:29,803 --> 01:11:33,803 Which lens is that on now? Number two. Let's try number three. 1199 01:11:33,843 --> 01:11:36,563 And then there's nothing in there of course. 1200 01:11:36,603 --> 01:11:38,723 So we thought we would try piss. 1201 01:11:38,763 --> 01:11:40,723 Which is as blank as rainwater here. 1202 01:11:41,523 --> 01:11:42,923 But just before we ended, 1203 01:11:42,963 --> 01:11:47,083 we switched the microscope off, 'cause it has an electrical thing. 1204 01:11:47,123 --> 01:11:50,363 We shouldn't leave it on, so we went down to switch it off and to see 1205 01:11:50,403 --> 01:11:52,723 whether it was still on, we looked through the lens 1206 01:11:52,763 --> 01:11:56,643 and there as a magical crazy garden... 1207 01:11:56,683 --> 01:11:57,803 ..in the piss. 1208 01:11:58,763 --> 01:12:02,203 And we found out every single drop of piss was different. 1209 01:12:02,243 --> 01:12:03,843 Every day it was different. 1210 01:12:03,883 --> 01:12:08,083 There was a whole crazy w- world of shapes and things. 1211 01:12:08,123 --> 01:12:11,363 It crystallised itself into an amazing world. 1212 01:12:11,403 --> 01:12:14,203 And we were so very fascinated by that. 1213 01:12:14,243 --> 01:12:18,043 Like the ones on the, on the cards outside showed the church 1214 01:12:18,083 --> 01:12:20,483 and the streets, this showed another world. 1215 01:12:20,523 --> 01:12:21,523 Yeah. 1216 01:12:22,563 --> 01:12:26,323 Then we started to try it with blood, tears, spunk, piss. 1217 01:12:26,363 --> 01:12:27,483 Yeah. 1218 01:12:27,523 --> 01:12:30,323 Sweat, and we were very excited to find they all had shapes, 1219 01:12:30,363 --> 01:12:32,483 shapes and meanings and content. 1220 01:12:32,523 --> 01:12:35,643 I think we took four months, no, we were just doing that. 1221 01:12:35,683 --> 01:12:37,963 Nonstop every single day. Mad about it. 1222 01:12:38,003 --> 01:12:40,443 Yes. And then we did all the, the pictures. 1223 01:12:40,483 --> 01:12:44,003 "Blood, Tears, Spunk, Piss" is one of the big quadropart of the pictures. 1224 01:12:44,043 --> 01:12:46,443 Can you imagine the galleries? 1225 01:12:47,603 --> 01:12:50,443 Behind it they were all terrified, no? 1226 01:12:50,483 --> 01:12:52,963 Now remember Ileana Sonnabend looked at it, 1227 01:12:53,003 --> 01:12:55,123 "Oh, my God, what are they coming with now?" 1228 01:12:55,163 --> 01:12:57,803 Not entirely relaxed about everything.Yeah. 1229 01:12:57,843 --> 01:13:00,163 Something that Gilbert and George said to me 1230 01:13:00,203 --> 01:13:03,443 is about the microcosm and the macrocosm. 1231 01:13:03,483 --> 01:13:06,923 You know, the tiny little thing that happens, you know, 1232 01:13:06,963 --> 01:13:10,123 is symbolic of the much bigger thing. 1233 01:13:10,163 --> 01:13:16,003 So these tiny kind of microscopic cells that they were looking at can 1234 01:13:16,043 --> 01:13:21,163 give meaning to, you know, much bigger sort of global things. 1235 01:13:24,243 --> 01:13:28,323 GEORGE: To make a picture which actually speaks like personal things 1236 01:13:28,363 --> 01:13:30,603 there is a human cost for the artist. 1237 01:13:31,883 --> 01:13:34,003 The artist has to be damaged in some way. 1238 01:13:34,043 --> 01:13:36,563 Uh, little brain damage or a little emotionally damaged, 1239 01:13:36,603 --> 01:13:37,803 but there is a cost. 1240 01:13:39,003 --> 01:13:42,363 The greatest arrangement on the planet is two people. 1241 01:13:43,323 --> 01:13:46,683 GILBERT: Can you imagine being alone in the studio? 1242 01:13:46,723 --> 01:13:50,763 We've done pictures which would be too scary for one person to do. 1243 01:13:52,043 --> 01:13:58,043 We are always making a difficult art that is very personal in some way. 1244 01:13:58,083 --> 01:14:01,443 That's why a lot of collectors have big problem to buy it, 1245 01:14:01,483 --> 01:14:05,483 because it's too personal and too difficult. 1246 01:14:05,523 --> 01:14:09,403 But it's a journey that is our personal journey. 1247 01:14:09,443 --> 01:14:13,323 Our art is always- has always been very personal. 1248 01:14:15,243 --> 01:14:18,443 We think that we developed a way of making pictures that needs 1249 01:14:18,483 --> 01:14:20,083 two people, really.Oh, yes. 1250 01:14:20,123 --> 01:14:23,403 It'd be very difficult for a person to make pictures like this. 1251 01:14:23,443 --> 01:14:25,523 Both, both from the physical point of view, 1252 01:14:25,563 --> 01:14:28,963 even from the emotional point of view, it'd be very difficult. 1253 01:14:29,003 --> 01:14:31,683 We don't argue, but even if we did, we wouldn't tell you about it. 1254 01:14:31,723 --> 01:14:35,363 We do know that we would, if we would start to argue 1255 01:14:35,403 --> 01:14:37,843 everything would fall apart very fast. 1256 01:14:39,083 --> 01:14:42,483 Because it's based on accepting the two. 1257 01:14:42,523 --> 01:14:46,483 The view of two people together. If not you are finished immediately. 1258 01:14:48,003 --> 01:14:50,163 We don't trust the idea of a happy artist. 1259 01:14:50,203 --> 01:14:52,363 No- nobody would really trust the idea of that. 1260 01:14:52,403 --> 01:14:55,363 As an artist who likes life and likes art 1261 01:14:55,403 --> 01:14:58,363 and likes being artistic and has artistic friends. 1262 01:14:58,403 --> 01:15:02,723 We celebrate life but we like to be able to realise that there's 1263 01:15:02,763 --> 01:15:07,923 nothing in the world that is not also inside of you or us or anybody. 1264 01:15:07,963 --> 01:15:11,763 Any horror in the world, we're also capable of. 1265 01:15:13,203 --> 01:15:18,403 But I do believe that we went through unbelievable difficult pain. 1266 01:15:19,923 --> 01:15:22,403 That's why we are not able to remember anything. 1267 01:15:22,443 --> 01:15:25,403 We are able to remember very, very little because it feels like 1268 01:15:25,443 --> 01:15:31,443 an enormous mad cloud of- full of dark and all crazy stuff. 1269 01:15:36,363 --> 01:15:40,563 GILBERT: It feels we are not aware of this mad schizophrenia that 1270 01:15:40,603 --> 01:15:42,483 went on for 40 years now. 1271 01:15:42,523 --> 01:15:46,363 It's extraordinary. I really believe never conscious. 1272 01:15:46,403 --> 01:15:49,803 GEORGE: We've always created pictures which are slightly self-destructive 1273 01:15:49,843 --> 01:15:51,043 we would say. 1274 01:15:51,083 --> 01:15:54,363 That we believe in being disturbed. 1275 01:15:54,403 --> 01:15:59,523 We always said 10, 20 years ago that we were the most disturbed people we ever met. 1276 01:16:00,523 --> 01:16:03,323 Always next day maybe it's going to be a better day. 1277 01:16:03,363 --> 01:16:06,883 That's what we were always, our motto is always next day. 1278 01:16:09,443 --> 01:16:13,643 INTERVIEWER: You've now shown in most, if not all the major museums 1279 01:16:13,683 --> 01:16:16,403 in the world, and you're representing, at the moment, 1280 01:16:16,443 --> 01:16:19,403 Britain in the pavilion at the Venice Biennale. 1281 01:16:19,443 --> 01:16:23,723 Does that mean, in a way, you've become pillars of the establishment? 1282 01:16:23,763 --> 01:16:28,163 GILBERT: We never feel we are accepted. Never get that. 1283 01:16:28,203 --> 01:16:29,483 We know we are not. 1284 01:16:29,523 --> 01:16:32,883 That's why we are fighting every single day, every hour 1285 01:16:32,923 --> 01:16:34,923 towards acceptance. 1286 01:16:35,883 --> 01:16:37,963 What's your biggest hope? 1287 01:16:38,003 --> 01:16:40,363 We hope for better recognition. 1288 01:16:41,603 --> 01:16:46,243 Well, if the Venice Biennale isn't recognition, I don't know what is. 1289 01:16:46,283 --> 01:16:50,443 GEORGE: I think there's a huge division between the establishment 1290 01:16:50,483 --> 01:16:54,083 and the art profession and the vast general public in the world. 1291 01:16:54,123 --> 01:16:57,163 I think we're much more accepted in the vast general public, 1292 01:16:57,203 --> 01:16:59,203 even now the show in Venice is on. 1293 01:16:59,243 --> 01:17:02,523 I'm sure the knives will be out in the press for certain, for certain. 1294 01:17:02,563 --> 01:17:05,923 We know which newspapers will be completely against. 1295 01:17:07,563 --> 01:17:10,603 English artists have to be Tate Britain 1296 01:17:10,643 --> 01:17:14,243 and modern artists are at Tate Modern. 1297 01:17:14,283 --> 01:17:18,203 40 years, we have been campaigning to be international modern artist. 1298 01:17:18,243 --> 01:17:21,883 We don't have to be provincial artist going down to Tate Britain. 1299 01:17:21,923 --> 01:17:27,523 This is the first exhibition to occupy the whole of level four, 1300 01:17:27,563 --> 01:17:30,323 and of course it's the first exhibition ever 1301 01:17:30,363 --> 01:17:32,523 at Tate Modern of a British artist. 1302 01:17:46,483 --> 01:17:49,203 (TRAFFIC AMBIENCE) 1303 01:17:50,883 --> 01:17:55,643 When we started the new way of making pictures was in 2000 1304 01:17:55,683 --> 01:17:58,163 when we started to use computers. 1305 01:17:58,203 --> 01:18:02,243 For years, young people had been coming to our openings or 1306 01:18:02,283 --> 01:18:05,563 exhibitions saying, "What computer are you using?" 1307 01:18:06,803 --> 01:18:09,243 They assume we were using one already. 1308 01:18:09,283 --> 01:18:12,763 We did it manually, layers after layers. 1309 01:18:12,803 --> 01:18:16,163 So it was a seamless move over to the new technique. 1310 01:18:17,203 --> 01:18:19,523 It was almost like, you know, photoshop had been 1311 01:18:19,563 --> 01:18:22,723 sort of designed around what they had been doing previously. 1312 01:18:22,763 --> 01:18:25,723 It was very natural for them. 1313 01:18:26,723 --> 01:18:28,963 This is our favourite title, "Bed Wetting". 1314 01:18:29,003 --> 01:18:32,163 In folklore, the children are told not to touch dandelions, 1315 01:18:32,203 --> 01:18:35,083 because they would become bedwetting, yeah. 1316 01:18:35,123 --> 01:18:39,083 Some people think we must miss the romance of the dark room 1317 01:18:39,123 --> 01:18:41,563 and the chemicals and the smells. 1318 01:18:41,603 --> 01:18:42,643 We say not at all. 1319 01:18:42,683 --> 01:18:45,083 The only thing we miss is a rubber glove. 1320 01:18:45,123 --> 01:18:46,403 (LAUGHS) 1321 01:18:48,243 --> 01:18:50,843 They haven't wavered from, um, 1322 01:18:50,883 --> 01:18:54,683 the formal aspects of their style of picture making and that's 1323 01:18:54,723 --> 01:18:59,883 been a key to their success over the course of the last nearly 60 years. 1324 01:19:01,083 --> 01:19:03,443 I think the audience for art is, 1325 01:19:03,483 --> 01:19:06,683 is the biggest change that we feel every day. 1326 01:19:06,723 --> 01:19:11,963 Never did so many people know about art and artists as now. 1327 01:19:12,003 --> 01:19:15,923 It is extraordinary over the last 50 years. 1328 01:19:15,963 --> 01:19:19,963 Everybody knows what an artist is, who an artist is. 1329 01:19:20,003 --> 01:19:24,043 The life of an artist is very important to lots and lots of people. 1330 01:19:37,443 --> 01:19:41,083 We always feel we want our picture to be seen. 1331 01:19:43,483 --> 01:19:47,083 We were looking for finding a space where 1332 01:19:47,123 --> 01:19:49,563 we could make a kind of gallery. 1333 01:19:50,843 --> 01:19:54,603 This place came available and we bought it. 1334 01:19:54,643 --> 01:19:56,283 We were very pleased. 1335 01:19:56,323 --> 01:20:00,443 The luck of the world to, to find somewhere so near to where we live. 1336 01:20:01,643 --> 01:20:06,443 Wherever we walk, in London or Paris, always a young person stops us 1337 01:20:06,483 --> 01:20:08,443 and says, "I love your art." 1338 01:20:08,483 --> 01:20:12,843 And we say, "Which exhibition?" "Oh, I've never seen an exhibition." 1339 01:20:12,883 --> 01:20:16,563 They've always seen a catalogue or a book or a television programme 1340 01:20:16,603 --> 01:20:20,203 or something else, so the idea that you can be in front of the picture 1341 01:20:20,243 --> 01:20:22,083 is very, very important. 1342 01:20:22,123 --> 01:20:26,163 People come from different countries, travel over to see it 1343 01:20:26,203 --> 01:20:27,883 from different walks of life. 1344 01:20:27,923 --> 01:20:30,323 It is very much an artform experience. 1345 01:20:30,363 --> 01:20:32,683 And it works, it works very, very well. 1346 01:20:32,723 --> 01:20:34,363 We're very, very pleased. 1347 01:20:36,563 --> 01:20:40,483 It's very nice and it's off Brick Lane, it's on a cobbled street. 1348 01:20:43,283 --> 01:20:46,163 Then a little entrance through into the gallery. 1349 01:20:47,203 --> 01:20:50,923 So they can walk in. Then, "Wow." 1350 01:20:52,603 --> 01:20:54,923 We can show groups of pictures. 1351 01:20:54,963 --> 01:20:58,683 One group, two groups or three groups.Room for three group. 1352 01:21:02,683 --> 01:21:05,603 And it is, it's not overwhelming. 1353 01:21:09,843 --> 01:21:15,443 The legacy is secure and rightly positioned 1354 01:21:15,483 --> 01:21:20,043 in the very geography where so much of their art making has taken place 1355 01:21:20,083 --> 01:21:23,523 and so much of the work has been drawn from inspiration. 1356 01:21:25,163 --> 01:21:28,923 It's lucky for all of us, it's incredible. 1357 01:21:28,963 --> 01:21:33,483 People that don't know I'm friendly with 'em. 1358 01:21:33,523 --> 01:21:37,523 They come in here and they go, "Oh aren't you lucky. 1359 01:21:37,563 --> 01:21:40,203 You live near Gilbert and George. 1360 01:21:40,243 --> 01:21:44,123 Look at their centre that we've just been." 1361 01:21:44,163 --> 01:21:45,763 It really is incredible. 1362 01:21:48,003 --> 01:21:49,923 GEORGE: I think we're enjoying the success. 1363 01:21:49,963 --> 01:21:52,923 GILBERT: I think seeing people going in and out of the foundation 1364 01:21:52,963 --> 01:21:54,483 is success for us. 1365 01:21:54,523 --> 01:21:57,643 Because, uh, we can see they want to see our art. 1366 01:21:57,683 --> 01:21:59,283 They want see our vision. 1367 01:22:05,083 --> 01:22:09,043 We started to see all these leaf that could be human in some way, no? 1368 01:22:09,083 --> 01:22:12,483 And making into a jungle of paradise. 1369 01:22:13,803 --> 01:22:18,563 The paradisical pictures are dealing with paradise, 1370 01:22:18,603 --> 01:22:22,923 or maybe paradise on earth. 1371 01:22:22,963 --> 01:22:24,763 AUTOMATED VOICE: 'Doors opening.' 1372 01:22:24,803 --> 01:22:30,523 It's perhaps not surprising that people of their age are going to 1373 01:22:30,563 --> 01:22:32,763 think about their own mortality 1374 01:22:32,803 --> 01:22:37,803 and, uh, what happens after they leave this world. 1375 01:22:39,123 --> 01:22:43,083 We rather think that the pictures are not, you know, imaginary picture 1376 01:22:43,123 --> 01:22:45,963 of paradise, 'cause we're not such damned fools to think 1377 01:22:46,003 --> 01:22:49,803 there is such a place, but rather we're very conscious. 1378 01:22:49,843 --> 01:22:53,523 Every day, people talking about the afterlife and the other world. 1379 01:22:53,563 --> 01:22:56,363 The promising of a ever-lasting life to everyone. 1380 01:22:56,403 --> 01:23:00,483 So the pictures are about what people have said and thought 1381 01:23:00,523 --> 01:23:04,803 and continue to think about the next world rather than 1382 01:23:04,843 --> 01:23:08,163 an actual, imaginary, damn silly place. 1383 01:23:09,523 --> 01:23:14,003 We do believe in the afterlife, in that you can walk anywhere in 1384 01:23:14,043 --> 01:23:16,843 the world and stop a complete stranger in the street 1385 01:23:16,883 --> 01:23:18,843 and say, "Vincent Van Gogh." 1386 01:23:18,883 --> 01:23:21,323 Whether they've seen a show, 1387 01:23:21,363 --> 01:23:24,483 or seen a book or not, something will come into their mind. 1388 01:23:24,523 --> 01:23:29,163 If you say, "Charles Dickens. Elvis Presley." 1389 01:23:29,203 --> 01:23:33,243 And that is the force of culture. The greatest living force ever. 1390 01:23:34,243 --> 01:23:37,043 What is exciting is that we are here. 1391 01:23:37,083 --> 01:23:40,283 But to go over 80 and we're still able to make our art, 1392 01:23:40,323 --> 01:23:41,963 our vision is still there. 1393 01:23:42,003 --> 01:23:46,363 We never lost our vision because the vision was based on us, 1394 01:23:46,403 --> 01:23:48,163 our journeys through life. 1395 01:23:49,723 --> 01:23:53,563 This amazing journey of us is like pilgrim's progress. 1396 01:23:53,603 --> 01:23:56,243 Confronting life, no? 1397 01:23:56,283 --> 01:23:58,763 Confronting life every day. 1398 01:23:58,803 --> 01:24:02,083 It is amazing life experience that we have together. 1399 01:24:03,403 --> 01:24:06,523 And we were able to describe it through our art. 1400 01:24:08,203 --> 01:24:11,323 We always want to be positive in making it. 1401 01:24:12,523 --> 01:24:14,803 It's very important to us that we are living it 1402 01:24:14,843 --> 01:24:19,323 and the force of making it, because life after all, 1403 01:24:19,363 --> 01:24:22,683 there is nothing better than being alive. 1404 01:24:22,723 --> 01:24:26,243 I don't know how it is being dead, but anyways. 1405 01:24:26,283 --> 01:24:29,283 Being alive, it's extraordinary for us. 1406 01:24:31,483 --> 01:24:34,643 Our earliest ambition was to win and be loved 1407 01:24:34,683 --> 01:24:36,683 and it's probably still true. 1408 01:24:38,123 --> 01:24:41,283 We didn't care what they said about us. 1409 01:24:41,323 --> 01:24:46,403 OK, we disliked it, but we went on to do exactly what we wanted. 1410 01:24:47,683 --> 01:24:50,963 We still feel separate from normal life. 1411 01:24:52,963 --> 01:24:55,363 I think, in the end, it was very simple. 1412 01:24:56,243 --> 01:24:59,243 We did our art and that was it. 1413 01:25:05,323 --> 01:25:07,123 GEORGE: Oh art, what are you? 1414 01:25:09,843 --> 01:25:13,203 You are so strong and powerful, so beautiful and moving. 1415 01:25:13,243 --> 01:25:19,083 You make us walk around and around, pacing the city at all hours. 1416 01:25:19,123 --> 01:25:21,483 In and out of our art for all room. 1417 01:25:23,643 --> 01:25:27,123 We really do love you and we really do hate you. 1418 01:25:27,163 --> 01:25:29,523 Why do you have so many faces and voices? 1419 01:25:29,563 --> 01:25:31,203 You make us thirst for you 1420 01:25:31,243 --> 01:25:33,283 and then to run from you, 1421 01:25:33,323 --> 01:25:35,843 escaping completely into a normal life. 1422 01:25:35,883 --> 01:25:39,243 Getting up, having breakfast, going to the workshop 1423 01:25:39,283 --> 01:25:41,603 and being sure of putting our mind 1424 01:25:41,643 --> 01:25:45,963 and energy into the making of a door or maybe a simple table and chair. 1425 01:25:46,003 --> 01:25:48,563 The whole life would surely be so easeful, 1426 01:25:48,603 --> 01:25:50,563 so drunk with the normality of work. 1427 01:25:52,403 --> 01:25:55,883 And yet, art, there is not going back. 1428 01:25:55,923 --> 01:25:58,763 All roads go only on and on. 1429 01:25:58,803 --> 01:26:01,923 We're happy for the good times that you give us 1430 01:26:01,963 --> 01:26:05,603 and we work and wait only for these titbits from your table. 1431 01:26:06,723 --> 01:26:10,083 If you only knew how much these mean to us, 1432 01:26:10,123 --> 01:26:14,323 transporting us from the depths of tragedy and black despair 1433 01:26:14,363 --> 01:26:18,603 to a beautiful life of happiness, taking us where the good times are. 1434 01:26:20,683 --> 01:26:23,963 One day we thought we saw you, art. 1435 01:26:24,003 --> 01:26:26,163 It was in a crowded street. 1436 01:26:26,203 --> 01:26:29,363 You were dressed in a light brown suit, white shirt 1437 01:26:29,403 --> 01:26:31,603 and a curious blue tie. 1438 01:26:31,643 --> 01:26:33,003 You looked very smart, 1439 01:26:33,043 --> 01:26:36,763 but there was about your dress a curious wornness and dryness. 1440 01:26:36,803 --> 01:26:42,443 You were walking alone, light of step and in a very controlled sense. 1441 01:26:42,483 --> 01:26:45,403 We were fascinated by the lightness of your face, 1442 01:26:45,443 --> 01:26:49,363 your almost colourless eyes and your dusty blond hair. 1443 01:26:49,403 --> 01:26:51,283 We approach you nervously. 1444 01:26:51,323 --> 01:26:55,043 And then, just as we neared you, you went out of sight for a second. 1445 01:26:56,043 --> 01:26:58,403 And then we could not find you again. 1446 01:26:58,443 --> 01:27:02,803 We felt sad and unlucky. At the same time, happy and hopeful 1447 01:27:02,843 --> 01:27:04,483 to have seen your reality. 1448 01:27:09,883 --> 01:27:13,323 Subtitles by Sky Access Services www.skyaccessibility.sky