Gilbert & George

Carter Ratcliff, Gilbert & George: the Complete Pictures 1971 - 1985, New York, 1986, p. 162, illustrated in color

Dead Masks, with its vibrant green and yellow palette and tragicomic content, marks a discernible shift in both the mood and scale of Gilbert & George’s oeuvre that began in the 1980s. As was their practice, the artists use themselves as models, presenting their grimacing faces, closely cropped and theatrically lit, on a large format made possible by their move to a new studio and the use of more sophisticated technological aids. The work still comprises separately framed pictures in large rectangular fields, however they now form an integrated whole - a duality of two colors and two expressions - creating a new visual unity that strengthens the monumentality and overwhelming visual effect, akin to billboards or stained glass windows. Formally, the present work moves towards greater simplicity, verging on the emblematic, but at the same time the content becomes more complex.  

The artists recall: “In 1980 and 81 we made a series of Modern Fears… We felt the style of the Western World, the fabric of its life, was very threatened. That’s why you have all this crumbling.” (Carter Ratcliff, Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures 1971-1985, New York, 1986, p. XXVIII). To a great extent these pictures take up fundamental existential questions connected with religion, death, myth, sexuality and the AIDS epidemic, however they do so on a more allegorical level instead of the documentary realism that characterised their earlier series in the 1970s. Dead Masks shows the artists grappling directly with fears of mortality. However, there is a lightness of touch that derives in part from the seriocomic undertones of these huge, contorted expressions and in part from the word play of Dead Masks and Death Masks. Unlike conventional death masks which are solemn records for posterity of someone recently passed away, the present faces – expressions frozen for perpetuity – are more akin to theatrical masks and comic horror.