The artists Gilbert and George feature women in burkas in their new exhibition reflecting the changing face of the East End, their home for decades.
The veiled figures feature in giant photomontages demonstrating the artists’ long-standing hostility to all religions which they believe “terrorise” people.
They appear alongside images of the artists themselves and a string of typically foul-mouthed slogans urging “molest a mullah” and “f*** a vicar” as well as “jerk off a judge”.
George Passmore, 72, said: “We’ve always been wrongly accused of choosing the soft target of Christianity and not including women in our pictures — happy now?”
His partner Gilbert Proesch, 70, added: “We want our art to bring out the bigot from inside the liberal and conversely to bring out the liberal from inside the bigot.”
The artists have worked together since they met at St Martins art school and this show, Scapegoating Pictures for London, is the latest demonstration of the artists’ career-long desire to shock. The pictures are dominated by sinister bomb-shaped canisters used to contain nitrous oxide, known as “whippets” or “hippy crack” and taken to induce a high and hallucinations. The artists have been collecting the discarded canisters in the streets around their home in Spitalfields.
Scapegoating Pictures for London is at the White Cube, Bermondsey, from tomorrow to September 28, admission free.
