Gilbert & George: The Paradisical Pictures

Writer, novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell explores the paradise behind the PARADISICAL PICTURES; the thirty-five artworks made by Gilbert & George in 2019. The artists' work confounds and rejects all art historical classification or affiliation to other schools or movements in art. As affirmed by the PARADISICAL PICTURES, there is no formalist, aesthetic or conceptual precedent to the ideology and vision they convey with such intensity. The paintings are fantastical, allegorical, narrative, representational, psychedelic, absurdist, modern yet archaic, surrealist-grotesque, inflected with both tragedy and comedy, filled with pathos, touchingly eloquent of human frailty, age and exhaustion. The art of Gilbert & George is a visionary art, above all - reports from a cosmic journey through life that begins on the streets of London. The PARADISICAL PICTURES suggest a chapter in a story that has been unfolding before them and will continue beyond them. This 'paradise' is not a destination but a stage on a longer journey. It is a dream of paradise and the exploration of an archetype that is both secular and sacred. The paradise of these PARADISICAL PICTURES proposes a more ambivalent view - a place of biomorphic mutation, exhaustion, watchfulness and possession.