KGB spies, stolen art and underpants – when Gilbert and George went to Russia – The Times

IT was the last incredible victory of the KGB. On April 27, 1990 Gilbert and George, the long-lived enfants terribles of British art, were exhibited at the Central House of Artists in Moscow. There, in the state-controlled cultural heartland of the USSR, space was given space to Margaret Thatcher’s distinctly ill-advised vision of the duo. An exhibition of their work – including large-scale printing Coming (1983), which featured a London sky full of flying underpants – attracted an invited crowd of artists, journalists and government officials.

At the grand opening, Gilbert and George wore their trademark matching tweed suits and were flanked by three men: Soviet Union of Artists General Secretary Tahir Salakhov; Bearded KGB agent Sergei Klokov; And the person who brought this unlikely