The British art duo Gilbert & George were not initially convinced it was a good idea to show their work in a church. They are generally anti-religion. But, as George points out, “faith in the church is out there” and to deny its existence would be futile.
“What convinced us is that we could cover up the windows with our pictures,” says Gilbert. “Our pictures are like windows on the soul.”
The couple’s Scapegoating Pictures, produced in 2013, are on display in the darkened nave of the 19th-century St. Matthew’s Church by Berlin’s Kulturforum near Potsdamer Platz. They are part of an exhibition called Luther and the Avant Garde, in Berlin, Kassel and the eastern German town of Wittenberg from 19 May to 17 September. It is one of dozens of shows across the country marking the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
The mostly black, white and red images depicting the multi-faith, multi-cultural streets of London’s East End are filled with small bomb-like canisters—sometimes raining down like bullets, sometimes neatly arranged in rows. The canisters are in fact used containers of nitrous oxide, a street drug sometimes known as “hippie crack”. Women in burqas also feature in the pictures—as do the artists themselves, sometimes fragmented, sometimes complete but with their suits crammed with rows of canisters. Some works contain provocative texts, such as a call to fight Islamophobia, or an Islamic State proclamation of success in the Muslim takeover of Britain.
For Gilbert & George, dressed in tweed suits for the opening press conference, the dominant issue of our era is the clash between Islamic and Western cultures. “It’s not going to go away in a lifetime,” George says, adding that the pair “feel very privileged that we live in the turmoil”.
Their home in East London is at the centre of their art. “At one end of the street is the mosque, at the other end is the church,” Gilbert says. He recalls that 30 years ago, the vicar of the church described the duo as “sick, sad and serious”. These days, the same church is available to rent for events at £8,000 an evening; the artists threw a party there after their Tate Modern show in 2007. “It was a final revenge,” George says, smiling.
