NEW YORK— The world-famous "living sculptures" Gilbert & George have made their lives their art for nearly 40 years. They first met at London's St. Martin's School of Art in 1967 and, with their iconic Singing Sculpture (Underneath the Arches) (1969), established the performative element that has been a constant in their art ever since. However, as their recent Tate Modern retrospective (which concludes its current world tour at the Brooklyn Museum in winter 2008) and the accompanying Aperture publication Gilbert & George—The Complete Pictures, 1971-2005 make obvious, they have also been making pictures for about as long. The duo's images are among the most confrontational art of the last quarter century, dealing in a consistently unsettling way with issues of sexuality, race, class, religion, politics, and morality.

Gilbert & George are utterly convinced of, and committed to, the ready accessibility of their art—they first coined the catchphrase "Art for All" in 1969. But they have also encountered years of criticism (some of it highly personal), which has left them understandably bitter about how they have been treated by the media, particularly in the United Kingdom.

Gilbert & George were in New York last month promoting The Complete Pictures, and they spoke to ARTINFO at the offices of the Aperture Foundation. Interviewing them is a unique experience, and in our transcript of this AI Interview we have endeavored to maintain the character of their language and personalities. George [Passmore] is the taller and more sober of the pair; he is urbane, terribly English, and has a voice very like Prince Charles. Gilbert [Proesch] is more excitable, and more mischievous. His voice is rather shrill and heavily accented, and—considering he has shared his life with George for so long—his English is far from idiomatic and is full of idiosyncracies. Together, the duo creates as captivating a verbal act as they do an artistic one.

Gilbert, George, you're obviously political artists. What are your thoughts on Tony Blair's decision to finally step down?

Gilbert: He should have done it ten years ago.

George: Good-bye and good riddance!

He's an old fake.

What would you say to the suggestion that you are chroniclers of Blair's England?

I don't think that for one single moment. I don't think we're party-political, not in our pictures anyway. I think that we're political in that we believe in the force of culture more than a lot of people in the art world. They think it's more decoration or entertainment or something. We believe that how you are and how your grandparents were—what music they listened to; whether they read poetry or not—is a big part of who you are.

How you free yourself, from the everyday. Do you believe yourself to be a free person or not a free person—or part of the government. The free market, that's what we believe in, the free market economy as art. You can buy it or not buy it, that's it.

You've talked in the past about your pictures being "visual love letters to the viewer." What does that mean?

We don't think that our pictures are laying down the law. It's more like a doorway, an opportunity to think about some subject in the picture.

A personal letter to the viewer. That's what art is for us ...

... Each one is slightly different ...

... Personal letters that they can explore if they want to. We want to make the kind of art that they can understand. They don't have to be for or against it, but they have to be able to understand it in some way. You cannot be so abstract that they don't know how to start to see it.

And we love the viewer. We stopped being social with a lot of artists in the 1970s because we realized that they had a condescending idea about a stupid general public that they were superior to. It's an appalling idea. So cruel! Everyone is fantastic. You can speak to any single person, and they all have incredible lives.

That attitude is reflected in your motto, "Art for All," isn't it?

Yes.

It started quite naively at the beginning. As a kind of slogan in '69.

But it became more and more true.

It was very funny because I don't know if we believed it or not [at first]. We did believe it in some ways, but we didn't realize how far that we could take it.

We knew that we didn't want weird modern art: just a broom hanging from the gallery ceiling. That's not going to speak to anyone.

What is this?

What the hell is this trying to tell me?

Do you feel that people understand your work?

Based on our mailbag, there is an extraordinary breadth of understanding. We had a wonderful letter just after the show opened at the Tate Modern, saying, "I've never written to an artist before, but I always go to exhibitions. I particularly liked your exhibition at the Serpentine ['The Dirty Words Pictures'] and I also saw the White Cube exhibition [the 'Sonofagod Pictures']. Now I've seen the Tate exhibition, which is very good. I love the way you challenge all of our thoughts and feelings about social and political issues. Speaking as a priest in the Church of England, I find this so refreshing!" Extraordinarily sweet! He must have agonized, I think. Don't you think? Charming.

I love the idea of ordinary people writing to you at your home.

Yes. We're quite open.

It's very good, because we walk in London three times a day, to keep fit. It's quite extraordinary. People know us, and they all come up to us and shake our hands. Extraordinary. And that's quite interesting for us, because other artists, they don't know them; they don't know the artwork, so they don't know who the artists are. We are part of the artwork, so they know us. That's it.

That's what people mean when they call you "iconic."

It's very simple. Strange people! There are two [of us]. So we are immediately recognized.

You seem to have had particularly difficult relationships with some members of the media. Brian Sewell, the art critic of the London Evening Standard, for example. I recently read a particularly vicious attack that he wrote about the Tate Modern show. What provokes a response like that?

He's against every artist!

And he used all of the images that he thought would discredit us.

Abusive in every single way! He did it for 30 years, every time we had a show. It's not new, it's just more intense. Because the show was bigger, he had to be more vitriolic. It started years ago in the Sunday Times: always anti! anti! anti! In the end he couldn't even write about it he was so mad about it!

Strangely, in some ways he brought London to the center of the world. He made London the artistic capital, with these constant attacks.

We believe they are closet homophobes.

Ah, that we know. The moment they say, "curiously besuited," they would love to say, "filthy queers!"

That was why we did the poster [to promote the Tate Modern exhibition.] We did it in an edition of 250.

We did an Evening Standard poster using the same lettering. It said "PERV DUO DESECRATE TATE MODERN: PICTURES"

And it was only funny because we did it.

If the Evening Standard did it, it wouldn't be funny.

It's ironic of course, because you've used Evening Standard headline posters in a lot of your work. And apparently you steal them?

That's how we got them for The Bomb Pictures.

One of us goes into the shop and buys something ...

And the other one?

Nicks the poster!

But they are finished anyway the next day. They don't mean anything.

We made those six Bomb Pictures using just those Evening Standard posters. It was extraordinary. A young man wrote to us as a survivor of the Aldgate bombing saying how much he loved those pictures. It's amazing to think ... Such a damaged person.

The show that has just closed at Tate Modern was enormous. It occupied the whole of the fourth floor there.

Not only that, but the cafeteria ...

... and the concourse ...

So visitors saw quite a lot of work without paying to get into the show?

We fought for more than a year to get reduced or free admission, but we lost. It doesn't work like that. It's a pity. Visitors get a free look at the stuff that's always going to be there, but the stuff that's leaving in one month costs them.

Our show was £10. £10! It's too much!

You mentioned before that it was the first time that British artists have had a special exhibition at Tate Modern?

It's not allowed.

It's against the Tate's constitution.

Nobody actually knows. But we know, because they told us.

They came to [our home/studio in] Fournier Street and said, "We have not had an exhibition by British artists at the Tate Modern, and we have no plans to."

So how did it come about?

We had the luck of a lifetime. Jan Debbaut, ex-assistant of Rudi Fuchs from Eindhoven, became the head of acquisitions at the Tate, and Nick Serota gave the problem of sorting out our show to Jan Debbaut, thinking that the whole thing would go the other way. But Jan Debbaut was determined that it should happen, and that it should be a whole floor and that it should be Tate Modern.

And it was a very good idea and it was totally successful. They will never have a show of living artists that will be so successful. 100%! It worked because we designed everything: the underground poster, invitation cards, catalogue. All designed by us. A total idea.

Even the swear box we designed, which was an enormous success. An ordinary wooden swear box like you would buy at Torqauy as a souvenir. It has swear words, but with asterisks in the middle so that anyone can buy it. On the front it says, "The Gilbert & George Swear Box," and on the back, "Pay Up. F*** Off!" Everybody, all age groups, just loved it. It's quite extraordinary.

The BBC made a television show to tie in with the exhibition.

They are so mean, the BBC. They did this program, and we worked on it for 20 days. And when did it come out? One day after...

... the show closed. Just to stick a knife in, hmm?

So they would have no effect. Yeah, they didn't want ...

"We are not going to be responsible for promoting you chaps." Amazing, hmm? That wasn't the program makers; that was the artistic director of the BBC, apparently. Somebody had very strong feelings, to do that. It's particularly vicious, one day later.

You call yourselves "living sculptures." Is that the same as being performance artists?

We've never used that word ourselves.

Ever!

We always say that performance art is the art that alienates lower-class people. They think it's mucky. They don't believe in it. Going about making strange noises or something.

Whereas your intention is?

Standing still.

Clean, classical ...

Standing still!

... class-less. It doesn't offend anyone, you see, because it's not mucky.

And it doesn't matter what we do. Direct. We don't have to do anything.

But when you meet people in the street?

When we walk?

And people come up to you?

Oh yes.

Not in an intrusive way; they're always very polite.

But they are completely fascinated by us. By our art, and that's it. Because we seduce individuals in some way. Because our art is very visual and powerful and big so they are taken in by it. And then they start to see all these subjects about sexuality, religion, and politics, and drunkenness and they become part of it. Because everybody's the same, you see. They all have the same feelings. They have problems. They're all drunk and they shouldn't be drunk. Religious that shouldn't be religious. Don't you think? It's all the same. That's why we like it.

But you can't pretend that your work isn't intended to be provocative.

We have to be provocative, otherwise they wouldn't look at it. They wouldn't.

We believe in "de-shocking" as well. Being able to de-shock. To be able to put the shitty naked human world in the gallery and the old ladies totter in and they don't run out.

It's called "de-shocking."

We never wanted to be completely ugly and confrontational, saying, "Accept this. If not you're stupid."

It is amazing, at the Tate Modern all the children were allowed in this extraordinary exhibition with the big cock-sucking images and things like that. That's quite amazing.

There was one of the images, that was graphic, very graphic ...

... and we were naked in it, too ...

And one of the little children was asking, "Can you do that, Mummy?" And she said, "Sometimes, dear." This conversation would never have happened except that we made that picture!

And two little boys took their trousers off in front of Shitty Naked Human World ...

... and ran around. That's a new religion or something.

One person complained, it seems. I don't know how many people saw it, maybe 150,000, and only one or two complaints. It's extraordinary, don't you think?

Also the Tate didn't make any suggestions about the selection [of pictures]. Which is good. They didn't touch that.

Do you think you'll have a similarly free hand when you show your work at the Brooklyn Museum?

I think we've set a standard that it's going to be embarrassing for the other museums to say anything. It's good that we've broken down that myth about the uptight Brits, anyway, right? It seems to be the Europeans who are uptight. But I think we'll be able to get away with more on the continent, and here, because of the Tate.

Why did you choose Brooklyn?

I hope that people get out there. I'm still nervous that people will get off the Island and go and see it. It's not totally easy, is it?

Well, their Annie Leibovitz show was a huge success.

Ah, she's famous ... and also a dyke!

Did it say that on the poster?

I remember that they tried the Museum of Modern Art for us. But it's impossible.

They would never take a show like this. I think there's nowhere on the island that would.

The Guggenheim we did, that's why they wouldn't do it again. Otherwise we would have done it. And the Museum of Modern Art, it's all ...

... timid, timid art.

We're not at all part of that museum establishment.

Their current big show is Richard Serra.

Again, it's abstract art. It doesn't offend anybody. That's it. They like abstract 'cause they don't want to offend. Don't you think? They did Brice Marden. It doesn't offend anybody. It's expensive. That's how we see it.