In celebration of Gilbert and George

I’d always questioned the creative genius of self-confessed ‘living sculptures’ Gilbert and George. Their dogged determination to be seen as ‘different’ felt archly self-conscious and not particularly interesting. Like so many fly-by-night avant-gardists of the 1960s, the duo’s ‘originality’ tended to hang on hoary old controversies such as scatological imagery, sex and nudity – hardly revolutionary even back then.

But listening to the pair’s touching interview with John Wilson on BBC Radio 4’s This Cultural Life recently made me reassess their contribution not just to art, but to the gaiety of the nation. George is now in his early eighties with Gilbert not far behind, and what I found refreshing about these two throwbacks to a more vigorous creative age is how they have remained true to their artistry. The pair’s strange otherworldliness is still rooted in a very real but disturbing reality. Their desire to keep churning out ever more startling imagery suggests my cynicism about them may have been unfair.