Gilbert and George launch new exhibition with attack on religion

The controversial artists Gilbert & George are launching a new exhibition this week called Jack Freak Pictures.

Interviewing them for the London Evening Standard, Alison Roberts wrote:

Besides the humour and oddity, there is controversy in these new shows too. G&G’s hatred of organised religion — they do not discriminate between faiths but particularly loathe the Catholic church — is well-known and taken in Jack Freak to new extremes. A Jesus figure features in several of the pictures, wearing both Union Jack-patterned Lycra and a Union Jack halo. Visitors to White Cube will also be able to buy for £2,000 a limited edition poster that says, simply, BAN RELIGION. For artists who profess fierce libertarianism, they have some extraordinarily intolerant opinions.

“But it’s good to have an opinion,” protests George. “When we walk to dinner, we pass churches that also have opinions, like the one that says, The bloody death of Jesus was for you. That's quite aggressive, no? Or the worst one, the really horrible one, is ‘I am the way.’ That's horrific, isn' it? Just one person is the only way in life? It's like Hitler.”

“We think,” Gilbert chips in, “that all the religious art at the National Gallery should be put in a separate building.” Are they serious? “Yes,” says George, “It should be out. It's fake, all this Jesus stuff. It's lies.”

For Gilbert, who was raised a Catholic in the Italian Dolomites, there is some history to this loathing. “I remember it was a mortal sin to kiss as a teenager,” he says. Does he mean to kiss a man? “To kiss anyone.”

See the artists interviewed here