![](https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Bermondsey/2014/Gilbert-George/CLAD_press.jpg?w=960&h=720&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1709228415&s=4b02ec71f6046a9a16eadd6902a7ac60 960w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Bermondsey/2014/Gilbert-George/CLAD_press.jpg?w=1280&h=960&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1709228415&s=e8cee2f741239db8a1aa565a876ae030 1280w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Bermondsey/2014/Gilbert-George/CLAD_press.jpg?w=1600&h=1200&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1709228415&s=1a70e9ccd0238becbfb0017fc6c1d5f7 1600w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Exhibitions/Gallery-Exhibitions/Bermondsey/2014/Gilbert-George/CLAD_press.jpg?w=2360&h=1770&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1709228415&s=f6692276b512cc023648e13bdd100490 2360w)
SCAPEGOATING PICTURES for London
Gilbert & George
SCAPEGOATING PICTURES for London
18 July – 28 September 2014
Dates
18 July – 28 September 2014
'Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth’
For nearly five decades the art of Gilbert & George has created a visceral and epic depiction of modern urban existence. At its centre are always the artists themselves, who have dedicated their adult lives to their calling as ‘Living Sculptures’ – witness participants within the moral and vividly atmospheric world of their vision, as it is revealed in their art.
The ‘SCAPEGOATING PICTURES’ unflinchingly describe the volatile, tense, accelerated and mysterious reality of our increasingly technological, multi-faith and multi-cultural world. It is a world in which paranoia, fundamentalism, surveillance, religion, accusation and victimhood become moral shades of the city’s temper. Gilbert & George take their place in these ‘SCAPEGOATING PICTURES’ as shattered and spirit-like forms – at times masked, at times as grotesquely capering skeletons, at times dead-eyed and impassive. These ‘SCAPEGOATING PICTURES’ consolidate and advance the art of Gilbert & George as a view of modern humanity that is at once libertarian and free-thinking, opposed to bigotry of all forms and dedicated to secular realism.
Dominating the SCAPEGOATING PICTURES, becoming almost the imagistic signature of this new group of pictures, are images of the sinister bomb shaped canisters used to contain nitrous oxide, also known as ‘whippets’ and ‘hippy crack’ — recreationally inhaled to induce euphoria, hallucinations and uncontrollable laughter. Gathered by the artists on their early morning walks from the side streets and back alleys that surround their home, the presence of these canisters, mimicking that of ‘bombs’ pervades the mood of the SCAPEGOATING PICTURES to infer terrorism, warfare and a stark industrial brutality.
Echoing the maxim of the great Victorian architect, A.W.N. Pugin, ‘Not a Style, but a Principle’, the vision of the SCAPEGOATING PICTURES both affirms and intensifies the historically iconic art of Gilbert & George, in its tireless, emotional and profound engagement with the viewer and the modern world.
![](https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Artist-Pages/Thumbnails/Gilbert-George-WOKEN-2020.jpg?w=720&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1683814161&s=ce941f2815e0c2a7bdefe3fab54cd2f5 720w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Artist-Pages/Thumbnails/Gilbert-George-WOKEN-2020.jpg?w=960&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1683814161&s=141f58dab160ff97fd3ea8c9cc8d2781 960w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Artist-Pages/Thumbnails/Gilbert-George-WOKEN-2020.jpg?w=1280&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1683814161&s=39a65a7c35dab2c3b6c572a2bb1a0ef8 1280w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Artist-Pages/Thumbnails/Gilbert-George-WOKEN-2020.jpg?w=1600&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1683814161&s=8f0e1f0746fc9c9d66443dd952ae1445 1600w, https://white-cube.transforms.svdcdn.com/production/uploads/Artist-Pages/Thumbnails/Gilbert-George-WOKEN-2020.jpg?w=1955&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop&crop=focalpoint&fp-x=0.5&fp-y=0.5&dm=1683814161&s=11aa6e74402a6f72b12ee93286aaed02 1955w)
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