They are anti-conformists in all their actions. When they declare themselves royalists, it is because they perceive in the communism the threat of a social leveling. Their mural installations are assemblages of heteroclite photographs certainly inspired by their neighbors the punks.
In 1977 the socialists progress too much to their liking. They create a series of 17 prophetic works under the title Red Morning to predict by the subtitles all the coming disasters including Attack, Death, Dirt, Scandal.
Each opus is a regular rectangle of three to five elements in each row and column. The images are divided into three themes : the self-portrait of one or the other of the two artists standing in shirt-sleeves in a vulnerable attitude, large buildings in the City and the urban surrounding reflected in a puddle. Some elements are colored in dark red.
Hate is a 240 x 200 cm collage of sixteen elements 60 x 50 cm. The twelve photos of the perimeter are colored. This artwork was sold for $ 1,8M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2013.
With the offbeat and always unpredictable humor that characterizes the duo, Hell is the only one of the 17 murals that has not been colored at all. In the same format as Hate, it is signed George and Gilbert. Hell is estimated £ 800K for sale by Christie's in London on October 3, lot 21.
SOLD for £ 850K including premium
Marking the 50th anniversary of #GilbertandGeorge with their ‘Red Morning Hell’ – offered in Masterpieces of #Design and #Photography, 3 Oct pic.twitter.com/zuyFq6mjDU
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) September 25, 2017