Unlike other British artists recently honoured with Tate retrospectives, Gilbert & George have been invited to exhibit their lives’ work at Tate Modern, rather than Tate Britain. There are different ways of looking at this. It might be a way of saying that, whereas the likes of Anthony Caro, Bridget Riley and Howard Hodgkin are part of a merely British tradition of painting and sculpture, Gilbert & George are truly international modern artists – an eccentric point of view, but one that chimes with their own stated view of themselves as Artists by Appointment to the People of the World. On the other hand, it could have been a purely pragmatic decision, based on the scale and the overflowing quantity of their work.
It is certainly true that Tate Modern’s exhibition could never have been squeezed into the relatively modest confines of Tate Britain’s exhibition spaces. The show has been given a whole floor of the converted power station at Bankside, and even that is barely enough. The work fills not just the actual art galleries themselves, but spills out into the concourse, the cafeteria and even the grim, crowded queuing area next to the lifts. Veritable acres of the artists’ colourful gridded photo-pieces, resembling nothing so much as profane parodies of stained-glass windows, are on display. Loans have been flown in from Stuttgart and New York, from Berlin and Amsterdam, from as far afield as Arkansas (and a hundred other places beside). Rarely can an exhibition of contemporary art have left a heavier carbon footprint.
The cumulative effect of all this confirms two things. First, a little Gilbert & George goes a long way. Secondly, they were far better artists in their youth than they have ever been subsequently. In the later rooms...
