Gilbert & George — Scapegoat. Bouc emissaire. Sündenbock. Pictures for Paris — Thaddaeus Ropac Paris Pantin Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 7 → November 15, 2014

Play Gilbert & George - SCAPEGOAT Présentation de l’exposition « Scapegoat. Bouc emissaire. Sündenbock. Pictures for Paris » par le duo Gilbert & George — Vidéo en anglais

“…these Scapegoat pictures appear to describe the nervous system, fears and traits of a contemporary technological multi-cultural and multi-faith urban society — the complex co-existence of religions, politics, beliefs and lifestyles, in all their shades of temper, from religious fundamentalism to capitalist secularism, their one uneasy common bond being the quotidian realities of urban existence in the second decade of the twenty first century.”

Michael Bracewell (exhibition catalogue)

Over the decades, Gilbert & George have observed the evolution of their East London neighbourhood and our modern world, dealing with the perpetual flux of urban life. In these pictures, the figures are acting in a way, which recalls how Gilbert & George saw themselves as ʻLiving sculpturesʼ, binding societal problematics and art together with a deadly serious way of describing a world of intense emotion, past, present and future.

These new pictures, all from 2013, reveal a modern western world through Gilbert & Georgeʼs sociological environment by exploring the tensions generated by the coexistence and the interaction of its inhabitants. The pictures are populated by young people from different races and backgrounds, veil-clad Muslim women, and Gilbert & George themselves, masked in some or covered in small bomb-like canisters of nitrous oxide in other pictures, adopting different guises, sometimes appearing as shattered forms. They describe, as they have always done throughout their artistic practice, our modern urban world, by tackling subjects — death, hope, life, fear, sex, money, race and religion — in an engaging and direct way.

Specifically conceived for the halls of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac Paris-Pantin, the exhibition create a tremendous environment before travelling to several museums. A book accompanies the exhibition, inlcuding a comprehensive essay by the novelist and cultural critic Michael Bracewell.