Overview

The paperback edition of THE PARADISICAL PICTURES is created to celebrate the opening of the Gilbert & George Centre in East London. Gilbert & George's work confounds and rejects all art historical classification or affiliation to other schools or movements in art. As affirmed by THE PARADISICAL PICTURES, there is no formalist, aesthetic or conceptual precedent to the ideology and vision they convey with such intensity. The paintings are fantastical, allegorical, narrative, representational, psychedelic, absurdist, modern yet archaic, surrealist-grotesque, inflected with both tragedy and comedy, filled with pathos, touchingly eloquent of human frailty, age and exhaustion. THE PARADISICAL PICTURES suggest a chapter in a story that has been unfolding before them and will continue beyond them. This 'paradise' is not a destination but a stage on a longer journey. It is a dream of paradise and the exploration of an archetype that is both secular and sacred.

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9780903696708

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Michael Bracewell is the author of six novels and two works of non-fiction including the much acclaimed England is Mine. His writing has appeared in The Penguin Book of Twentieth Century Fashion Writing and The Faber Book of Pop, and he has written catalogue texts for many contemporary artists, including Gilbert & George, Richard Wentworth and Jim Lambie. He was co-curator of 'The Secret Public: The Last Days of the British Underground, 1977-1988', at the Kunstverein Munchen in 2006, and was a Turner Prize judge in 2007.

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