Go see the Gilbert and George show at the Brooklyn Museaum. I went last weekend, and I spent this past week thinking about the show and what I would say about it when I posted. Truth is I can’t sum it all up in a succinct way and I’m not entirely sure what I thought, but I definitely enjoyed the experience of seeing the show.

The work is a bit wacky, a bit political, large, outlandish, colorful, sarcastic, smart and a lot of fun. Gilbert and George are an incredibly interesting and talented art duo — their work is extremely cohesive. Their giant photo-manipulated murals are all tiled with the same modular dimensions in thin black frames which adds a unique and identifiable graphic element to their work. The show was curated by the duo and is not organized in chronological order, but there are some noticeable distinctions between their earlier more modernist b/w photographic style to their current over-the-top Photoshop manipulated works. I liked anything done pre-phoroshop best. The old ways of photo-manipulation were so much harder to do well, but the craft is still so much greater when it is done well.

I also really enjoyed their postcard “sculptures” — as most designers know, great visual messages can be created when images (especially from pop culture) are put together in interesting juxtapositions. But my favorite thing of all was their artist signature and date stamp (detail shown below). I especially loved when they used a dotted line  to indicate where they would sign their names.