Gilbert and George talk about the British art scene, Occupy London, being artists in the Thatcher years, marriage and the popularising of art in a rather good read of an interview in the New Statesman, which you can read here.

In the interview, they said:

How do you square admiring Thatcher with being called the most controversial duo in art?
George She's very controversial.
Gilbert But saying you were Conservative was like committing suicide in the art world . . .

You've said if forced to, you'd have sided with the bankers against the St Paul's protesters. Is that position in itself a subversive one?

George No, it's very simple - if you're going to have lunch, serve a dozen oysters and bottle of Chablis, not a nut roast and an organic cider!

And did you go to the Occupy camp?
Gilbert We might have been past it a couple of times . . . It reminded us too much of '68. They look like hippies as well. And - they are middle class, not poor people.

Have you ever felt involved in gay politics?
George We have a special, subversive way to work that is even more powerful. We were a same-sex couple for long enough and they changed the law on civil partnerships. I'm sure we were a small part of that. Not because we said something about it: we did it by example.


Gilbert and George's current exhibition East London Stories is currently on at the White Cube gallery, more info here.
To purchase available Gilbert and George limited edition prints, step this way.

Celebrated East London based artistic duo Gilbert and George explore the shocking and sensational headlines in UK tabloids in their new exhibition titled London Pictures.

The exhibition has just opened at the White Cube gallery in Hong Kong, where one journalist reported: "From the shocking (Suicide Gang's Terror War on Britain) to the banal (Cat Killed In Park Dog Attack) and the bizare (Big Bummed Burglar Banged Up), the headlines are a morbid narrative on society's grim obsession."

According to reuters, the "often dark, sometimes humurous" London Pictures exhibition is made up of 3,712 newspaper posters "stolen" by the artists over six years from newsstands near their home in East London.

Gilbert and George told Reuters "hope, life, fear, sex, money, race, religion" were universal subjects - not just London specific .

They also said: "We feel we're not trying to shock anything. This is the reality that we found in London. Because we didn't invent this title. They are there."

The exhibition will come to London's White Cub galleries in the north (Hoxton Square), the south (Bermondsey) and the west (Mason's Yard) from March 9 to May 12. Visit White Cube gallery for more details.

For more on the dymanic duo Gilbert and George, visit here.