Gilbert & George

Gilbert Prousch (1943, San Martino in Badia, Italy) and George Passmore (1942, Plymouth, United Kingdom)

Gilbert & George are one of the most iconic and radical artist duos in contemporary art. Together since the 1960s, they have made their own image, presence, and life the beating heart of their work, building a unique visual language that blends photography, performance, provocation, and urban ritual.
From the London of youth revolutions to the most burning issues of global society, their art is a permanent declaration: every work is an act of exposure, denunciation, and defiance. Always elegantly dressed in suit and tie, they become an integral part of their own works, embodying the idea of "living sculptures" and turning their very existence into art.
A constant presence in the collections and exhibitions of the world's leading museums, Gilbert & George are admired by Stefano Rastrelli for their fierce consistency and imaginative force, which transcends every trend, keeping alive the urgency of an art conceived for everyone, and for all time.

In Beardalty, Gilbert & George double themselves, mirror themselves, rise up in an image where the body becomes icon and the face is transfigured. The black grid background, the fiery colours, and the digital details build a universe that is both pop and solemn, where raw symbols intertwine with the aesthetic of a contemporary stained-glass window.
The two artists - absolute protagonists - wear blazing red suits and ties that look like codes. Their beards, stylised into the shape of flames or molten streams, flow into a double crown, creating a tension between identity, royalty, and desecration. Beardalty sounds like an invented word, a fusion of "beard" and "royalty": a semantic and visual play that aims to redefine power, appearance, and the cult of image.
The work is part of their unbroken urban narrative, ironic and brutal, in which every sign is charged with meaning yet always ambiguous, elusive, unsettling. In Gilbert & George, beauty does not console: it disturbs, questions, reflects.