The Urethra Postcard Art of Gilbert and George at White Cube

The Urethra Postcard Art of Gilbert and George at White Cube

12 January, 2011
by: Alexchappel

Decima Gallery's Alex Chappel dons his press (and photographer's) hat to review the latest show from his pals Gilbert and George.

I stumble into the Gilbert and George press breakfast at White Cube Mason’s Yard feeling rather dishevelled and bewildered after last night’s proof that London’s private view circuit is back in full swing. All the same, the White Cube are most welcoming, and thank goodness they've got orange juice, croissants and coffee, without which I'd probably keel over before even seeing any art.

So I head downstairs to where the artists are said to be, finishing a photo-call, after which they clock me and come over to do the traditional double-breasted kiss greeting. “You have your press hat on today?” says George, and before I can get out an answer they're whisked off to be interviewed on camera for Guardian online. I’ve met Gilbert and George on many occasions on a personal level through our mutual friend (and Decima partner-in-crime David C West), and in this unfamiliar 'press-hat' context I can’t quite decide whether I’m a stalker, a fraud, both or neither. Even though Spoonfed did agree to me covering this show, I feel like a bit of an anomaly amongst the congregation of heavyweight art establishment journalists. Anyway, I put on a massive grin at how amusing the whole thing is, stuff in a few more croissants, and get on with it.

And amusing this show certainly is. For 'The Urethra Postcard Collection' Gilbert and George have produced an enormous 564-piece collection of 'postcard art', in which they have arranged, you guessed it, postcards, in grids and framed them. Some of the cards are shop-bought, and some are found in telephone kiosks. The grids represent the sign of the Urethra, which the artists were delighted to find was what an eccentric Victorian theosophist, a pioneer of masturbation correspondence courses, used to sign his name with: i.e. a dot with a circle around it.

The use of the postcard itself is explained by George: “we like the idea that something so fragile, ephemeral and delicate becomes a thing of meaning,” and he also cites the “British obsession with the Union Jack and telephone kiosks.” While shop postcards advertise “Brand Britain” flying the Union Jack, bulldogs, the royals, Routemaster buses and even telephone kiosks themselves, one does not have to go far to find a perhaps equally unauthentic yet polar opposite view, in which anything and everything goes, from “strict sensual massage in clean discreet surroundings” to “I’ll drag you around my posh flat by your nuts you filthy vetch”.

You could be forgiven for thinking this is a departure from their usual oeuvre, but you’d be wrong on two counts. Firstly, they have been doing postcard art for nearly four decades: “It’s not a departure, nor even a return to postcards,” says Gilbert, “it’s a continuation from our last series in 1989 – we just found that we have now accumulated enough.” Secondly, the postcard art of Gilbert and George fits in very well with a more familiar common thread: the holding up of a laughing, mocking, fun-poking mirror at ourselves, drawing our attention to the way we are, finding beauty in our bile, waste and taboos, and amusement in our vulgar hypocrisy.

All the same, the two “don’t like the idea of being anti-establishment,” as George puts it. “We don’t want to be weird scruffy artists: we want to piss people off but get away with it.” In this sense I’m sometimes tempted to liken Gilbert and George to Gillette razors or Colgate toothpaste – it seems they've cottoned on to the marketing graph, the one which shows you have to put out a new product every couple of years to remain the brand leader. Even if you don’t really have an improved or changed product, the market demands a sense of novelty and presence.

However, if this is true, then for these two it's a strategy to be applauded, as I tend to believe that the more of their work there is out there the better. I think a lot can be learned by the art race and rat race alike from their sense of industry, self-knowledge, legitimacy and relevance – not forgetting their sheer amusingness. So I for one hope they continue to “get away with it” for a long time to come.

The Urethra Postcard Art of Gilbert and George is at White Cube, Mason's Yard from Friday 14th January to Saturday 19th February 2011. 

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Photo credit: Alex Chappel.

Alexchappel