Gilbert and George have always liked to dress their provocation in conservative clothes. Even as their works combined enchantment with filth, illuminating blossoms and turds and bodies with the aura of stained-glass windows, they themselves have maintained the mien of country solicitors: immaculate ties and tweed suits, a permanent air of deadpan gravity, a well-documented admiration for Margaret Thatcher. “We want our art,” they say, “to bring out the bigot from inside the liberal, and conversely bring out the liberal from inside the bigot.”
