The Alcoholic

Gilbert Proesch and George Passmore met in 1967 as students at St. Martin’s School of Art in London. By 1969 they dropped their surnames in order to rid themselves of their separate artistic identities and became a collaborative unit. Although they work in a variety of media, including performance, photography, film, and video, Gilbert & George refer to all of their work as sculpture. Early on, they performed as “living sculptures,” making themselves their own subject matter. In 1971 Gilbert & George made their first multipanel photographs, which have remained their dominant form of expression. In the 1970s, they gradually shifted the emphasis of their art away from their own experiences to larger social issues, scrutinizing the inner-city realities that confronted them on the streets of London.