When Gilbert & George Went to China

In the 1990s contemporary art in China as we know it was finally born, emerging from the underground after decades of Maoist stricture, the dreary official dominance of socialist-realism, the constant interference of self-appointed cultural commissars and nosy prurient coppers. And one factor that contributed to that birth was the 1993 exhibitions in Shanghai and Beijing by Gilbert & George. China had never seen the like and a generation of young artists suddenly saw new vistas of possibility….

In the South China Morning Post weekend magazine I write about that amazing trip, those legendary exhibitions, the Chinese artists that were influenced and the British duo’s reaction to the PRC – stories all told in James Birch’s (he of the excellent Bacon in Moscow) new book Gilbert & George and the Communists (Cheerio Publishing)…. click here to read.