“I thought I was going to be trapped to death”: a trip with Gilbert and George to release a show in the 90s in Beijing – Art newspaper

The adventures of the British duet of the artist Gilbert and George in Communist Russia and China are detailed in a new publication by the Dealers of Art James Burch (with journalist Michael Hodges). Previously, Birch wrote about his attempts to hold a show by Francis Bacon in Moscow in 1988 and this new biographical book follows from this period. In this exclusive excerpt, after various capers, the exhibition of Gilbert and George since 1993 at the National Art Gallery in Beijing the exhibition is finally about to open.

Extract Gilbert and George and the Communists

Friday 3 September. It was finally an opening day. I caught Rickshaw in the gallery, Kate (my girlfriend for a few months) remained behind the writing of my speech, which was very good at her, and found that Gilbert was crazy because the catalogs were still not exposed to the tables. I kept myself cool. I had learned that this was a feature, especially with an exhibition on a large scale, that when an artist was no longer controlled, it was the moment when they would be scared for the smallest details.

“I thought Wang would fix this,” Gilbert said.

It was not a g -n wang Sening of the Chinese Embassy in London, who spoke very good English or the d -wang I had met in Beijing, and another, more than a junction, Wang from Beijing. His English was not good at all, but he was beautiful, quite beautiful, enough for Gilbert and George to hire him on the spot as their translator. The Boy Boat, he may have been, but so far none of the things have been asked to fix has been fixed. Fortunately, Lulu, a fantastically effective Chinese woman, said he would do it.

At 2.45 pm, the British ambassador arrived at the VIP room. Gilbert & George attracted attention. – Ah, the artists, wonderful. I am terribly sorry I will not be able to be here for the opening. But I thought I would come in and say well done. “And that, I thought, is how the British establishment rejects everything they can’t understand.

At 15:00 we were led above for the opening ceremony. The filmmaker David Langham and his camera crew were filming again. We were arranged behind the Chinese Foreign Minister. Gilbert & George received flower baskets, flash quuli came out into our faces, and the camera crews struck in the front of the gathered crowd of about 150 very excited Chinese. Everyone was invited, so I assumed that they were the upper echelons of society, even though I knew that echelons should not exist.

The minister then gave a speech to the tape in front of the gallery entrance, and thousands of more people descended into the show. The crowd soon stormed the stall, where Lulu valiantly tried to maintain control and sell the catalogs. She cried and disappeared from the view. I ran through the mafia to help her and grabbed a pile of catalogs. Kate and I tried to bring some order to the crowd, with Kate and I was jumping to a table to help them give them away. Immediately someone hit me in the balls and I doubled and went straight down. For a terrifying moment, I thought I would be trampled to death, but a strong hand pulled me back to my feet – Lulu saved me. “They are crazy, Mr. James!”

• James Burch with Michael Hodges, Gilbert and George and the CommunistsCheerio Publishing, 208PP, £ 19.99 (HB)