The Fundamental Gilbert & George
Gilbert & George cultivate paradoxes. Set back from the upscale milieu of contemporary art that reveres them, this pair of loners advocates "art for all". Serial, obsessive, sensitive, cerebral, with a British elegance that borders on parody, their provocative commandeering of the codes compels reflection. The camera follows them in their home-studio, in their neighbourhood, giving free rein to the lucid, often crude words of these working-class gentlemen about themselves and about the changes in the world that feed their creative process.

Synopsis
What you will find in this film
Preparatory studies • An interest in the organic • Samples and observation • Thousands of contact sheets • A rigorous nomenclature • Giant formats • Masks and stencils • Successive impositions • Months for one image • The photographic kitchen • Good use of the grid • From micro to macro • From black and white to colour • Total mastery of the creative process • A serial art • Exhibition models • A duo of artists • A four-handed creation • Thirty-five years of creation • "Living sculptures" • Total complicity • The art of provoking reflection • Paying attention to the world • Art for All • Artists in immersion • Permanence and durability • Never denying oneself • Breaking taboos • Contemporary, universal themes • A home-studio • London's East End • Bespoke tailor • Routines and obsessions • Relentless collectors • Rejection of religions • An interest in transcendence • On the need to be tolerant • To make the artist a work of art • A planetary influence •
Film chapters
08:32 Beginnings
20:29 The neighbourhood, the home-studio
40:25 Public success
57:19 Creating an image
89:50 Studio work and the laboratory