Shock art icons Gilbert & George on 40 years of double trouble

TWO OF A KIND Gilbert (right) & George (left) in their standard work clothes

If Andy Warhol was the prince of pop art, then Gilbert & George are its court jesters. Collaborators and co-conspirators since they met at St. Martins College in London 40 years ago, this dandified British duo helped invent performance art before switching to photo-driven montages that mix the iconography of religion, sex, and advertising.

"We never did any proper commissions. People could plop one of the pictures on a toaster for all we care, but we don't want to do it ourselves"Their recent show at the Tate Modern drew one of the museum's largest crowds, and the pair will take the show on the road with U.S. stops during the next year in San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Brooklyn. Now busting bookshelves is the mammoth two-volume set Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures, 1971-2005 (Aperture, $89.95), which charts their progress via 1,500 images.

Gilbert & George's influence is felt all over print and Web design, fashion, and even window display. "They were really funny and stupid in a great way. Similar to Warhol in that they were sphynx-like," says Simon Doonan, creative director of Barneys New York. "They were also style avatars: Gilbert & George were doing that tweedy Duke of Windsor retro look eons before Ralph Lauren brought it back."

RADAR: I can't think of another artist duo that has worked together for so long and so successfully. Forty years! How do you negotiate two egos into one piece?
George: Two people, one artist. One asleep, one awake.

Have you ever come to fisticuffs over a work?
Gilbert: No, we would never do that. We've developed a system. We get our new ideas and chuck them on the floor, see what sticks.

You've said your work boils down to sex, money, race, and religion. Is it really as simple as that?
Gilbert: Is there anything else? I guess it's even simpler now, down to love and hate. Everything is just love and hate.
George: It was interesting at the opening at the Tate. We were swarmed by hundreds of people from around the world who just wanted to shake our hand. Then we read the Sunday Times and the critics were full of hate. Nasty!

Your '80s oeuvre had terrible critical reaction at first—one naysayer said it was all "shit and queers." Why was there such a backlash?
George: Tourists walk through a museum and admire the Greek kouros, or marble nudes, and African tribal sculpture with big dicks, and Renaissance or even Cubist nudes, all fine. They'd get to our nudes and go, "Aaargh!"

FINDING GOD (1982)

In a world where movie stars flash their coochies, do you think it's possible to shock these days?
Gilbert: With religion you can.
George: Even with our catalog, there's a piece called Was Jesus Heterosexual? And everyone is terrified of that. The lawyer wanted to cut that out, and we thought, The church loves heterosexuals! Everyone is terrified of the Christians.

The work also reminds me of beautiful stained-glass windows, so the Christians should love you.
George: There's a slight resemblance. That was some of the most powerful art of its time, those windows. We didn't base it on that.
Gilbert: The work is a liquid color on white, so it's very vibrant and bright, pure color, like television—pure red, pure blue. We had to arrange a separation of color, so there's the black line, which feels like a stained-glass window, to hide the joints.
George: Kids who have never been to church in their lives think our work looks like Space Invaders.

YOUTH FAITH (1982)

You mean if I say fuck, I have to put a dollar in a box? Yes, we certainly have those.
George: We made a great swear box—never been one in the art world. On the front it says, "The Gilbert & George Swear Box," and on the back "Pay Up, and Fuck Off!" They sold out in two hours at the Tate.

On a fashion note, you both came up with a smart style of dress that is very distinct. Did you always dress like that?
George: It's a continuation of being poor boys, wanting to do well in the world. It's like a job interview—you smarten up, put on a suit, straighten your tie.
Gilbert: We used to go about to all the galleries, showing our work. We had to sell ourselves, look the part. So we kept it. If you're dressed properly, you can go in and out of the best places, hotels, and no one bats an eye.
George: You can get away with murder.

It's a great contrast, the two of you looking very Edwardian and proper, surrounded by a sea of naked boys and floating turds. What's this recent thing about the banning of hooded sweatshirts on the young in the UK?
Gilbert: We started doing pictures [of youths] wearing hoodies, and then a few weeks later they banned them on the young.

How and why do you ban an article of clothing?
George: It was in the big shopping malls. They were afraid of any kids in hoodies because of their loose, baggy nature. But not nuns, monks, or Muslim ladies. Only poor kids in hoodies.

Were they afraid they were going to steal or that they were carrying machine guns?
George: Little of both, I gather.

FOUR KNIGHTS (1980)

I hope this doesn't mean you're retiring.
Gilbert: No way. We're just beginning. Imagine how heavy the books would be if we had waited 10 more years!

You hand-designed the books and the packaging yourselves?
George: Very important. It took us a long time. We art-directed it, did all the separations. We delivered the whole thing to the publisher print-ready. That's how we kept it at such a reasonable price—low overhead. We were able to check the colors perfectly to the number.

It's appropriate that you were so involved in the printing of the book, since the worlds of print and Web design have ripped you off so much over the years.
George: And some artists!

I first became aware of you two as a young Bowie fanatic, when a reviewer called the sleeve to 1984's Tonight album a crappy rip-off of Gilbert & George. Did Bowie try to commission you to do it first?
George: We never did any proper commissions like that. People could plop one of the pictures on a toaster for all we care, but we don't want to do it ourselves. It's never copyrighted.
Gilbert: Also, we never wanted to use anyone else's images in our work. We make and take every photo. And we don't even have assistants—we're making it ourselves.

What?! People like Jeff Koons and Julian Schnabel must have 20 assistants painting all day for them.
Gilbert: We have one person who does our scanning, but except for the framing, it's all us.

BLOODY MOONING (1996)

Good fences make good neighbors anyway—that's the way we roll in New York, too. I never even look at my neighbors.
Gilbert: It's much better that way! I don't like other artists to look at our work—or the torture of seeing theirs. You have to pretend you like it!
George: Tracey Emin wanted to come over: "We must sit down and talk about something." I said, "What is it about: money or sex?"