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Book cover of Michael Bracewell's Gilbert & George: The Paradisical Pictures, with the artists slumped on benches, theirs faces obscured. Published by Hurtwood Press Ltd.

Gilbert & George: The Paradisical Pictures

By (author) Michael Bracewell

$90.00

  • The book focuses on the fantastical, allegorical and psychedelic PARADISICAL PICTURES by Gilbert & George, arranged in chronological order
  • Includes a fascinating commentary of the paintings by writer Michael Bracewell
  • Hurtwood's Special Edition of PARADISICAL PICTURES is released to celebrate the opening of the Gilbert & George Centre and will include foiling, colored edges and original artwork
Full Description

Writer, novelist and cultural commentator Michael Bracewell explores the paradise behind the PARADISICAL PICTURES; the 35 artworks made by Gilbert & George in 2019. The artists’ work confounds and rejects all art historical classification or affiliation to other schools or movements in art. As affirmed by the PARADISICAL PICTURES, there is no formalist, aesthetic or conceptual precedent to the ideology and vision they convey with such intensity.

The paintings are fantastical, allegorical, narrative, representational, psychedelic, absurdist, modern yet archaic, surrealist-grotesque, inflected with both tragedy and comedy, filled with pathos, touchingly eloquent of human frailty, age and exhaustion. The art of Gilbert & George is a visionary art, above all – reports from a cosmic journey through life that begins on the streets of London.

The PARADISICAL PICTURES suggest a chapter in a story that has been unfolding before them and will continue beyond them. This ‘paradise’ is not a destination but a stage on a longer journey. It is a dream of paradise and the exploration of an archetype that is both secular and sacred.

The paradise of these PARADISICAL PICTURES proposes a more ambivalent view – a place of biomorphic mutation, exhaustion, watchfulness and possession.

Hurtwood’s Special Edition of PARADISICAL PICTURES is released to celebrate the opening of the Gilbert & George Centre and will include original artwork.

About the Author

Michael Bracewell is the author of six novels and two works of non-fiction including the much acclaimed England is Mine. His writing has appeared in The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Fashion Writing and The Faber Book of Pop, and he has written catalog texts for many contemporary artists, including Gilbert & George, Richard Wentworth and Jim Lambie. He was co-curator of The Secret Public: The Last Days of the British Underground, 1977–1988, at the Kunstverein Munchen in 2006, and was a Turner Prize judge in 2007.

Specifications
Publisher
Hurtwood Press Ltd
ISBN
9780903696593
Published
22nd May 2023
Binding
Hardback
Territory
USA & Canada
Size
11.75 in x 9.5 in
Pages
120 Pages
Illustrations
54 color
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