The Postcard Art of Gilbert & George

Gilbert (1943) and George (1942), both art students, met in 1967 at St Martin's School of Art in London  (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design). In 1969, they created their first "singing and living sculptures," making themselves both subjects and objects of their works in a perfect fusion of their art and their everyday life. Gilbert & George then start to appear as "living sculptures" in museums and galleries. The pair are perhaps best know for their large scale photo works. The Pictures dating from 1971 are the first grid-arrangements, which would henceforth become their formal signature. In 1980, their iconography becomes more complex containing endless levels of meanings from symbolic and allegorical to the most unbridled eroticism, to the religious, political and personal.
Since 1972, Gilbert & George have used postcards widely in their art, those dating from the Edwardian period or the First World War until the more modern, mass-produced ones for the tourist trade.

In the Urethra Postcard Pictures, the two artists describe the modern urban world, by tackling subjects in a simple and direct way, like nationalism, patriotism, sexuality, but also the city in which they live and work, London along with its touristic and sexual attractions ....
They created 564 pictures in total, 76 of which are currently on view at Thaddaeus Ropac Gallery-Paris from February 17 to March 19, 2011.

Urethra Postcard Pictures

Bulldog Jack, 2009

Flag Bear, 2009

Tulips, 2009

Mr. Churchill & HM, 2009

Saluting, 2009

Three Bears, 2009

English Massage, 2009

Bridge & Ensign, 2009

Bridge & Pink, 2009

Shadow, 2009

Wheel Hall Bus, 2009

Courtesy Gallery Thaddaeus Ropac-Paris