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1973Gilbert & George 16–21 August 1973 29 August – 2 September 1973
Download education notes (PDF 7pp) Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader. Visit the Adobe website to download a free copy. We want our art to speak across the barriers of knowledge directly to People about their Life and not about their knowledge of art. The 20th century has been cursed with an art that cannot be understood. The decadent artists stand for themselves and their chosen few, laughing at and dismissing the normal outsider. We say that puzzling, obscure and form-obsessed art is decadent and a cruel denial of the Life of People. Gilbert & George, ‘What our art means’, The charcoal and paper sculptures, 1970–1974, Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux, Bordeaux 1986 We could easily imagine – I think it would be reasonable, anyway – that the pair's robo-movements, their posing, their never-changing suits, and Georg’s unlikely made-up Prince Charles accent, are all part of the same package of insulating themselves against a world that is hostile to their particular sexuality – their badge of defiant otherness Matthew Collings, Independent, Weekend Review, 6 November 1999 |  John Kaldor invited Gilbert & George to present The Singing Sculpture in Australia in 1973, after Christo and Jeanne-Claude suggested this other collaborative team to him. In the book 40 years: Kaldor Public Art Projects, he recalled their first meeting in London: ‘They walked in, like they do today, matching suits, ties, matching everything. They were very formal, friendly.’ For The Singing Sculpture, Gilbert & George – dressed in suits, with their faces, necks and hands painted in metallic paint – stood on a table and sang along to an uplifting recording of the Depression-era music-hall song ‘Underneath the arches’ while turning slowly in a circle and repeating a series of choreographed gestures. George recalled: ‘The important feeling we had was that we wanted to do something attractive and emotional. We didn’t want to do this grubby, fake-serious stuff’ (Tate Etc, issue 9, spring 2007, p 58). In early presentations, the song was played twice for a total of six minutes but some versions lasted up to eight hours. In Australia for the Kaldor project, the song was repeated 112 times each day, totalling five hours. It was presented for six days in Sydney at the Art Gallery of NSW, and then for five days at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. In both venues, Gilbert & George also displayed The Shrubberies Number 1 and Number 2, a large ‘charcoal on paper sculpture’. A documentary of Gilbert & George’s visit was filmed for ABC TV’s Survey program by Brian Adams, capturing their presentation of the sculpture and their strolls across Sydney and its parks. Read more about Gilbert & George. Watch video of Gilbert & George’s The Singing Sculpture on the Kaldor Public Art Projects website. Gilbert & George present The Singing Sculpture at the Art Gallery of NSW in 1973 | WORLD EVENTSUS troops pull out of Vietnam Patrick White wins Nobel Prize for Literature Sydney Opera House opens Mobile phone invented Lucy Lippard publishes the book Six years: the dematerialization of the art object 1966 to 1972 Walter Benjamin’s influential 1936 essay ‘The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction’ published in English National Gallery of Australia controversially buys Jackson Pollock’s Blue poles First Biennale of Sydney held at the Sydney Opera House Gallery 3rd Kaldor project Gilbert & George present The Singing Sculpture and exhibit The Shrubberies at the Art Gallery of NSW and Melbourne’s National Gallery of Victoria 4th Kaldor project Miralda creates Coloured feast at the John Kaldor Fabricmaker showrooms in Sydney and Coloured bread at the Art Gallery of NSW | ||
