Gilbert & George are a team of British artists who met while studying at Central St. Martin's School of Art, in 1967. Their first collaborations were performance art pieces in which they wore identical grey worsted suits and bronze colored make-up while they pantomimed to records as "Singing Sculptures." Since then, the grey suits have become their trademark, and "living sculpture" is the basic concept behind their art.

According to Gilbert,

"We are only human sculptures in that we get up every day, walking sometimes, reading rarely, eating often, thinking always, smoking moderately, enjoying enjoyment, looking, relaxing to see, loving nightly, finding amusement,encouraging life, fighting boredom, being natural, daydreaming, traveling along, drawing occasionally, talking lightly,tea drinking, feeling tired, dancing sometimes, philosophizing a lot, criticizing never, whistling tunefully, dying very slowly, laughing nervously, greeting politely, and waiting till the breaks."

Gilbert and George have been described as "art monks." For them art is a passion and a religion to which their entire lives are devoted. They eat breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday in the same cafe a block from their home. They wear the same grey suit uniform everyday, and never take vacations so they can dedicate all of their decision-making abilities to the creative process.

"Art for All" is the name of the Gilbert & George studio adjacent to their home in a blue collar, east-end London neighborhood. They want their art to be accessible to "people," not just to an enlightened few. They see their art as addressing fundamental human concerns, especially current issues in modern society, such as alcoholism, homosexuality, racial tension, religion, violence, unemployment, and corruption.

As an alternative to their performance activities, Gilbert & George began making large composite drawings in the early 1970s. They later turned to photographic processes, and in the 1980s colored their photo-pieces with dyes of bright, sometimes acidic colors. At the same time they dramatically increased the scale of their images. Cold exemplifies their work of the 1980s in its garish color combinations, mammoth size, symmetrical composition, and the depiction of the artists. All of their pictures, since they are expressions of the lives of the living sculptures, are autobiographical and usually include the likeness of the artists.

Gilbert & George refer to all of their work as "pictures" because, regardless of the medium, they are actually references to the real art, the living sculptures. The artists may employ photography, but they do not consider themselves photographers. They never discuss their working methods because they fear such technical information will detract from the central message of the imagery. Content, they contend, is all important. "We do not want our works to say art," explains George. "We want them to say life," adds Gilbert.

Website: http://www.gilbertandgeorge.co.uk/