April Fools?
Saturday 1st April …
So having heard that the gay grand-dads of art, Gilbert and George, were having a gallery opening in Spitalfields I took it upon myself to see whether they were playing a fantastic April Fools or not…
The day went as follows:
The 133 from Brixton to Monument through Borough and over the Bridge, landing me in the heart of Wren, Hook and Pepys London. And then walk up the length of Bishopsgate past the glazed tiles of Leadenhall and the juxtaposition of surviving churches in the shadow of the Gherkin.
Turning right, I find that I am on the street I have been looking for all along: Fournier Street E1…the home of the afore-mentioned Sculptors/Sculptures themselves…No 12 is noticeable by its shuttered windows, swept step and conspicuously unassuming matt-brown door. Some of the finest (and most filthy) art of 20th century England has been made here…
Continuing on, I notice the Indian script that accompanies the English street names and am hit by a wave of Dahl and chat spices. This is Brick Lane — the once beating heart of post-war commonwealth rich Britain. The street is narrow and still seems to hold the echoes of it’s once bustling hubbub of years gone by.
Then a dog-leg off down another side street to the site of an old brewery: The Pride of Spitalfields, now heralded not by drays and horses frothing at the bit and smell of bitter but two ornately kitsch green gates bearing the seal of G and G…
And there they are…tweed-clad, peculiarly normal and unfazed by the flashes of photographers. Blank in expression, sardonic and wry of eye. Mr Prousch and Mr Pasmore…better known to you and me as Gilbert and George.
A little while later I notice they are standing alone together and take my chance: Me and George have something in common — we both went to the same arts college — i note the fact and Gilbert, sharp with humour and seemingly mock cynicism says, rolling his eyes George-ward “Oh…another one”… The conversation continues a little while longer — they laugh politely at my attempted, nervous humour. George tell’s me he ‘has never recovered since’ finishing college and I make a mental note of this.
I am respectful and polite — because that is how they are, shake their hands, thank them and walk away to look at the rest of the exhibits in the gallery -my head filled with thoughts about quite how surreal yet fantastic that encounter was…
After watching a film in the exhibition i take it upon myself to make my progress to a site of Pilgrimage of sorts…Bunhill Fields: the burial place of John Bunyan (‘the most unknown and greatest of English writers’ — G & G) and William Blake (‘our favourite artist…because he is beyond life…he is floating around up there’) I sit, my head full of words and images and the feeling of bones very close by whilst the birds are the loudest thing I can hear in this central city Outsiders Cemetery…
Back down by the River at Monument I decide to ascend its 319 steps and look out over a city rebuilt in so many different eras and cannot get a sense of quite how vast that Great Fire really was…even though I can see all of London stretched out before me…
Anyhow…back on the bus, back to Brixton…as a last treat to myself, from the top deck I spot a bunch of lads, walking unaware past the building where Tyndale’s first Bible in English was published…
So many hundreds of years of history in so many hundred yards…
All in all a good days tramping around ‘having a good flan’* as the old saying goes…my feet can definitely feel it.
*Flan: from Flaneur — to go out dressed in ones finery to walk about and see, and be seen by the world and it’s people.
