Gilbert and George

Yesterday I checked out the Gilbert and George exhibit at the DeYoung. I had pretty mixed feelings about their exhibit. I found many of the pieces that they had done in the 80s and early 90s to be interesting, but all of the new works to be terrible. They lost the avant-garde edge somewhere along the way, and are just riding the coat tails of their former success. Their use of photos, scale, framing, and color is awesome though. They have a pop/postmodern mix where I think I like the pop side, but not the postmodern. Giant nude portraits framed with poop to me is just being extreme for shock value, and not because there is a really good concept. It was interesting, but not my favorite. These are both from the 80s (before they lost it):