Gilbert and George Banners review – art as undeniable as a punch in the face

THE GUARDIAN
By Jonathan Jones
Powerfully claustrophobic and electrically nasty … Gilbert and George. Photograph: Yu Yigang
UNITED KINGDOM---For their eight-millionth exhibition, Gilbert and George have chosen to exhibit their shopping lists. Or not even that: their small but perfectly publicised installation in one room at the White Cube gallery is a collection of hangover rants, raw remarks delivered over a bacon butty in their local greasy spoon. What naughty boys they still are, after all these years. Then I take another look at the Gilbert and George show. It has suddenly become powerfully claustrophobic, electrically nasty. The art of Gilbert and George is not explicable by tired textbook explanations of conceptual art. It is prophecy. They live in the “fire” of art, as the Victorian aesthete Walter Pater urged his acolytes to do. They burn in the conflagration of their times. [link]
Gilbert and George say-: BAN RELIGION. Photograph: Gilbert & George Courtesy White Cube

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