Splinters

The Real EastEnders

I know I'm definitely living in the East End now. I saw Gilbert And George in the street the other day, waiting for a bus outside Spitalfields Church, just up the road from their home in Fournier Street. Bless. It's not like they actually need to or anything. Seeing them both in the evening gloom in matching suits and raincoats (George sporting a rather natty woollen hat) was like seeing an artwork come alive, so iconic have to the two become through their own paintings. For me, at any rate. Like all great artists, G&G have got a cracking sense of humour, able to take the piss out of themselves and their work without diminishing the importance of their themes (love, sex, violence, beauty, death, shit - all the classics).

Their close friend, the writer and art critic Daniel Farson, wrote a superb, affectionate book about them (G&G: A Portrait) a couple of years ago which both punctures and reinforces their mystique. Unfortunately Farson died just after he finished the manuscript, but G&G helped the editor produce the final version as well as giving Farson their complete co-operation during its writing. I'd thoroughly recommend it if you've ever been intrigued by your glimpses of these two besuited figures, whether it be in art galleries or in the flesh. It's a world away from the usual po-faced, vacuous rhetoric of most art criticism. But then, G&G are a world away from the usual po-faced, vacuous rhetoric of most art.