Gilbert & George, the Aesthetics of Paradox

The new exhibition at the Gilbert & George Centre in London dedicated to the cycle Death Hope Life Fear turns the spotlight back onto a decisive phase in Gilbert & George’s production, between 1984 and 1998. It revisits the years in which the duo shaped their visual vocabulary: saturated colours, panel-based compositions and the constant presence of their own bodies as both symbol and narrative device. The title, drawn from a key work, refers to the universal themes running through this group of pieces, from mortality to hope, approached not as abstract concepts but as everyday tensions filtered through irony, strict formal discipline and a theatricality that remains deliberately direct. The selection of 18 works offers a compact reading of that period, showing how their language had grown more monumental compared to their earlier experiments. In the images on display, the artists are no longer mere observers of the city but central, almost hieratic figures who occupy the scene with a deliberately imposing presence. The exhibition space itself, the artists’ own centre in the East End where they have lived since the late Sixties, reinforces this sense of self-representation and shapes an experience aligned with their idea of “art for all”. It is not a retrospective or a celebratory tribute, but an opportunity to revisit a crucial chapter in their story, a moment in which form tightened, colour became a language, and the duo’s visual identity took definitive shape. A concise yet revealing exhibition that allows viewers to observe up close the moment in which Gilbert & George defined themselves as icons of their own aesthetic universe.