“THE BANNERS” at White Cube’s Bermondsey gallery showcases a series of new works by the infamous British art duo Gilbert & George, best known for addressing social issues and taboos through large-scale photo montages and text-based works. The pair describe the aim of their art as “to bring out the Bigot from inside the Liberal and conversely to bring out the Liberal from inside the Bigot.”Continuing their exploration of urban text and typography, which spans newspaper headlines, posters, flyers, street signage, and sex advertisements, Gilbert & George have produced a series of ten banners in three unique versions featuring various challenging and confronting hand-written phrases such as “FUCK THE TEACHERS,” “DECRIMINALISE SEX,” and “BAN RELIGION.”Taking slogans and catch cries that would once have been deemed shocking and divisive, but would be lucky to evoke a raised eyebrow in the young people of today, Gilbert & George have reframed and restaged them in an atypical context, establishing a counter-attack on the bigotry from which they originated, and in the process reanimated and reinvigorated the issues that they address.G&G is a British institution which has stated: “Our subject matter is the world. It is pain. Pain. Just to hear the world turning is pain, isn’t it? Totally, every day, every second. Our inspiration is all those people alive today on the planet, the desert, the jungle, the cities. We are interested in the human person, the complexity of life.”“Gilbert & George THE BANNERS” is at White Cube Bermondsey until January 24, 2016.
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