GILBERT & GEORGE.
The World of Gilbert & George. The
Storyboard.
Preface by Gilbert & George. Introduction by Marco
Livingstone.
Published: London: Enitharmon Editions, 2001
First edition, first impression. Edition of 1000 copies. Inscribed
by the artists on the front free end paper. The Storyboard publishes the complete text
of the pair’s only feature-length film (released in 1981), with 900
or so drawings visualising every scene and shot in the film, and
including all directions.
Physical Description
Oblong quarto. Original blue Buckram cloth, titles to
front cover in black on white label, titles to spine gilt, printed on
120 gsm white opaque. No dust jacket issued. Illustrated throughout
with ink drawings by Gilbert & George. A fine copy.
The World of Gilbert and George: The Storyboard publishes for the first
time in a handsome, limited cloth edition (120 gsm white opaque paper,
bound in buckram cloth and Kaskad endpapers), the complete text of the
1980 film directed by Philip Haas (Angels and Insects, Music of Chance),
including all instructions, as well as the 900 or so ink wash drawings
by Gilbert and George visualizing every scene and every shot in the
film. The film is the only feature-length work made by the pair and was
the culmination of the film and video works they had produced in the
previous decade. Wide in its range of imagery, moods, and themes, it
functions as a statement of their beliefs, as a summation of their work
to that date, and as a kind of blueprint for much of the art that
they've done since. The storyboard takes the reader on a picaresque
voyage through the artists' world, above all, their immediate
environment in London's East End. It's a world of extremes, taking in
the beauty of nature and the urban landscape, sex and eroticism,
religion and spirituality, drunkenness and degradation, fear and human
aggression, raucous humor, and poetry.