Gilbert & George - New Now New York Wednesday, September 27, 2023 | Phillips

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  • “They were still doing art about art and we never wanted that—we wanted to make art about life.”
    —Gilbert & George

     

    Boldly bright, Gilbert & George’s multi-panel mixed media work, Man-God, 1988, revels in the dichotomies and contradictions of the human condition. The work, segmented and numbered into 28 panels, presents a larger-than-life, bare-chested male figure against a vividly colored background of lush vegetation. The figure gazes vaguely upwards, and he leans, contraposto, against a pole—perhaps the handle of a gardening tool, or an architect’s meter stick. The pose and props of the figure confuse the resolution of the work’s title—is he Man, a human laborer, or God, divine gardener and architect of the universe?

     

    For Gilbert & George, the physical construction of the work plays an integral role in its symbolic significance. The pair often use the grid as a way to visualize the step-by-step evolution of life, and an understanding that everything can be divided into segments— a month, a week, a day, an hour. The 28 segments of Man-God thus allude to the daily component parts of a monthly calendar, or even an average female cycle. Biblical parallels, such as the Book of Genesis, in which God creates the universe in one week, also spring to mind.

     

    When gathering photographic material for their work, Gilbert & George seek out sculptural elements within the everyday, particularly references to classical sculpture. In Man-God, the work’s larger-than-life figure, sinking into a contraposto against a pole, mimics the unique and slightly awkward nature of Roman marble copies of Greek bronzes. Juxtaposing this nod to antiquity, Gilbert & George’s decidedly 1980s, neon-colored background avoids the notion of a “softly atmospheric” background, and throws the any preconceptions of an earthy paradise into artificial technicolor. Simultaneously harsh, flat, and frontal, the work almost seems to glow, like a stained glass window. Man-God is thus a representative example of Gilbert & George’s fearless and emotional oeuvre, combining art historical references with contemporary aesthetics, in a playful, yet sincere, commentary on human nature and the passage of time.

    • Provenance

      Galleria Christian Stein, Milan
      Private Collection (acquired from the above)
      Sotheby's, London, February 13, 2013, lot 245
      Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Milan, Galleria Christian Stein, 1988 Pictures, 1989
      London, Tate Modern, Gilbert&George, February 5–May 7, 2007

    • Literature

      Rudi Fuchs, Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures 1971-2005, vol. I, London, 2007, pp. 595, 598 (Galleria Christian Stein, Milan, 1989, installation view illustrated, p. 595; illustrated, p. 598)
      Inigo Philbrick and Hans Ulrich Obrist, eds., Gilbert & George Art Titles: 1969-2010 In Chronological Order, 2011, Cologne, p. 43

Property from an Important Collection

42

Man-God

signed and dated "Gilbert & George 1988" lower right of the lower right panel; each titled and consecutively numbered "Man-God [1-28]" on the reverse of the backing board
mixed media, in artist's frame, in 28 parts
95 x 139 in. (241.3 x 353.1 cm)
Executed in 1988.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$70,000 - 100,000 

Sold for $234,950

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now Sale 
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com

New Now

New York Auction 27 September 2023