Gilbert & George and the work series that keeps expanding
Published on 06/18/2026 at 18:26 | Editorial responsibility: Rafael Müller, Editor-in-Chief AD HOC NEWS
Gilbert & George have turned the motif of the walking, speaking body into a picture machine that has been running since the late 1960s. Their evolving grids of photographic panels, slogans and color fields keep folding East London streets back into the studio.
Long-running picture series
The core of Gilbert & George’s practice lies in expansive picture series that often unfold as suites of large panels, conceived less as isolated works than as chapters in an ongoing urban epic. Many series grow over years, sometimes returning to earlier motifs.
In the 1970s they used black-and-white photo panels and hand-tinted washes, later moving to vivid digital color and high-resolution photo montages that preserve the grid as a stabilizing frame. Within this structure, their own suited bodies function as recurring protagonists.
From living sculptures to picture grids
Gilbert & George first emerged as ‘living sculptures’, presenting themselves as static, suited figures in performances and photo pieces that collapsed life and art into one continuous pose. This insistence on presence carries through the later picture grids.
As the work series became more complex, the artists began to embed street signage, graffiti, newspaper typography and religious or political symbols into the compositions. The grid allowed these heterogeneous fragments to coexist without dissolving into chaos.
Background, exhibitions and market for Gilbert & George
For additional context on Gilbert & George’s picture series, institutional shows and auction results, the AD HOC NEWS archive offers further reports and analyses.
The work core and materials
At the center of Gilbert & George’s work is a highly controlled studio process that transforms street photographs into large-scale panels printed on paper and mounted behind glass. The glass surface adds a cool, almost ecclesiastical sheen to the often abrasive imagery.
Digital compositing enables dense layering of motifs while the artists retain a rigid frontal structure. Primary colors and sharply contoured blacks and whites heighten contrasts, giving even small textual elements a billboard-like clarity against the background.
Where the artists stand now
Gilbert & George continue to expand their long-running picture series from their East London base, maintaining a practice that treats each new work as both an autonomous image and a further tile in a decades-spanning urban tableau.
Key facts on Gilbert & George
- Artist: Gilbert & George
- Medium / Genre: Photography-based picture panels and installation
- Place(s) of practice: Studio in East London
- Active since: Late 1960s as a collaborative practice
- Key work groups: Living Sculptures, The Dirty Words Pictures, The Pictures, London-inspired picture grids
- Current/last exhibition: Our George Crompton, Worlds and Windows, Gilbert & George Centre, London
- Major collections: Tate (London), MoMA (New York), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Guggenheim (New York)
- Awards: Turner Prize (1986)
- Next date: currently no announced date in the 30-day window
Frequently asked questions about Gilbert & George
How do Gilbert & George structure their picture series?
They work in suites of photo-based panels that share a grid structure, recurring self-portraits, and a vocabulary of signs drawn from London streets, allowing each series to operate as a chapter in a larger narrative.
What role does London play in their work?
East London functions as both source and subject, providing text fragments, architectural details and social encounters that are photographed, recomposed and reinserted into their picture grids.
Why are Gilbert & George’s works often described as ‘living sculptures’?
The term refers to early performances in which they presented themselves as sculptural figures, a strategy that later evolved into appearances as suited protagonists within their large-scale picture panels.
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