| Gilberto & Jorge make
the most disconcerting journey -a journey that is not characterised
by anything in particular and is summed up by a whole series
of photographic visual documents that would appear to reflect
merely the repeated presence of two beings with an itinerary
of open or closed urban spaces as their backdrop.
The symbolic similarity of their artistic name to that of
the classic figures of British conceptualism does not lead
to further assumptions about their identity: they do not sprinkle
themselves with gold, do not mime, do not gesticulate and
do not create large pictorial panels from a dual image. They
do share with their English namesakes their loyalty to duality,
the evidence of the universe visited and conceived of in a
duo, the solitary space of two and the desire to record their
presences or synthetic presence on the complex fabric of reality,
however we may wish to interpret it. They thus get us to stop
on their side and involve us in observation, in contemplating
reality, which, although tey do not expressly say so, is one
of the essential values of their art.
Th deed of signing the text of the world alone or in a duo
is one of the most concious dramas of art and one which has
furthermore tended to give rise to incomprehension, if not
rejection. An extravagant Polish painter of symbolist leanings
and with a penchant for history, Jacek Malczewski (1854-1929)
marked the universe with his own image through nearly a hundred
self-portraits. His facial expression in these portraits was
imperturbable. He always showed the same harsh face with a
prominent jaw and aristocratic impartiality. Then he would
dress up and disguise himself, picturing himself as a dandy,
a jester, a Polish émigré and , only naturally,
as Christ. Sometimes the motif of the self-portrait was a
flower, as in the Self-portrait with Hyacinth, (1902), or
a colour, Self-portrait Dressed in White; Malczewski’s
imperturbable countenance was the link that always told of
an eternal fair play, an attitude reinforced by the formal
and somewhat stiff pose he adopted.
Two English post-Romantic symbolists, Ricketts and Shannon,
were contemporaries of this eccentric Pole, whose journey
to the depth of the self so much foreshadows the plyful carousel
of egos that has made Gilbert and George famous. When still
young, they decided, respecting their independence, to withdraw
from the world to live in solitude, merging proximity and
distance in the magnificent portraits they painted of each
other. I believe that these subtle sensitivities were present
in symbolism well before they came to surface in conceptual
art, in happenings or in role photography (an example of the
latter being Cindy Sherman’s career).
The only critical text in the catalogue of the Gilberto &
Jorge exhibition at Galería Tomás March in Valencia
was a cofession by Jean Jacques Rousseau . Rousseau, who was
forced to live in exile and subsequently chose another type
of self-exile, travelled incessantly, though the characteristic
feature of his travels was merely his solitary roams. In Les
Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (Reveries of the Solitary
Walker), each step is a milestone in the lengthy process of
awareness that requires strict conditions of sincere analysis
in order to emerge and accordingly exercise the initial thaumaturgical
effect of “cleansing” followed by enlightment. “Happy
if , through my self-progress, I learn to depart from life
not better , for that is impossible, but more virtuous than
when I arrived.”
What may seem a curious choice of text by some young artists
becomes clear when we examine the photographic oeuvre that
Gilberto & Jorge have accumulated for years over the course
of their own voyage; they share the conceptual severity that
the French master advocated.
In the sober images of the two of them with the world as their
backdrop there is an act of unclothing the mind in order to
face the conscience, and this is parallel to Rousseau’s
processes of introspection. There is likewise a solitude -albeit
of the two of them- and a distancing that is evidenced in
the quasi absence of gesture and poses, though there is an
underlying pose in the artists’ casual style. Irrespective
of the biological variations of the body in space, there are
categories in these photos which narrate the very fact of
being present in a place. We also see the recurring frontal
pose in which the facial expression is reduced to a minimum.
There is a mixture of classical portraiture, casualness and
teenage egomania and cinéma vérité that
prevents us from making a definitive assessment of the strategies
of these two inventors of space in exclusive terms of an ideology.
All these meanings are vividly present in the images of Gilberto
& Jorge, who currently pursue a heightened realism of
a purist nature, determined to seek the essential and shed
the superficial.
Jonathan Allen
(Excerpt from “G&J: Signs of awareness)
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