Gilbert and George

A few years ago now I discovered art, I was going through a pretty bleak time in my life and in order to distract myself from the misery I went down to the Saatchi Gallery in County Hall. For a couple of hours I forgot about everything that was bad in my life at the time. The humour in the works of the YBA's especially took me out of the black funk I was in.

Since then I've travelled around Europe checking out various galleries and finding less famous pieces that make my heart soar when I look at them.

I became a member of the Tate Galleries cos it was cheaper than paying to see the individual exhibitions and saved queuing up, still a practical northerner after all these years in the smoke! The last time I renewed my membership I upgraded to one that gave me invites to private views of their big shows.

Yesterday I made use of my first invite and went to see their massive Gilbert and George retrospective. The invite admitted two so I called my pal Jason Wood and asked if he fancied accompanying me. He did and bless him, he insisted on picking me up and driving me down there. I hadn't seen him for a couple of months and as always he was excellent company.

We went in, and while I was impatient to see the later, more well known stuff, it was interesting to see their early work. It seems to me that as an artist you have to prove you can draw first, then you can start pickling sharks and people will take you seriously.

To you or I they look like drawings of the pair of them in the countryside, but of course G&G describe them as 'charcoal-on-paper sculpture". This was followed by some amazing black and white photos from the mid-70's that were really moody and atmosopheric. By Room 5 the G&G we all know and love is beginning to take shape.

The Dirty Words Pictures which feature photos of graffitti they found in and around their East End home in 1977 really bring back the heady days of early punk.

They call themselves "Living Sculptures" and in 1975 in Tokyo, they painted themselves red and performed a show called The Red Sculpture funnily enough. How amazing it would've been to see that!

By Room 8 we are into classic Gilbert and George with a series of pieces with titles like England and Mullah...wonderful. By 1982 they're bringing in colour with pieces like Winter Flowers and Finding God.

Pieces like City Fairies and Christs are like some kind of bizarre cartoons, the bright cheerful colours belie the rather graphic images of the pair of them bent over displaying their arses like a couple of over excited baboons. That view of a man is never attractive and painting your cock and scrotal sack lime green or flourescent pink doesn't enhance it any, believe me!

Room 13 features the notorious Naked Shit Pictures from the mid-90's, they're perhaps the most uncomfortable ones in the show, all the others I could imagine hanging in my living room, but not these. Having said that, they are incredible.

Room 17 features the pieces they produced for the Venis Biennale in 2005, called Ginko which are simply breathtaking.

The work goes right through to the present with a series of six Bomb Pictures to 'represent London in a new age of terror'. Using Evening Standard advertising boards it really brings home what its like to be living in our our capital city at this point in history.

Jason is an admitted art virgin, he knew nothing of G&G, and it was great to see his reaction to these enormous works.

Carston Holler's big slides are still in the Turbine Hall, and while I am losing weight at a rapid rate, I didn't feel brave enough to have a go. The thought of getting my fat ass stuck in one of those massive glass tubes was too horrible to contemplate! Jason wanted to, but all the tickets for the day had gone sadly. They do look great fun, like the ones at a waterpark but in the middle of a massive art gallery.

So folks, I'm no Brian Sewell, but I can say that no matter how great or small your interest in art is, a trip to the Tate Modern is a must for everyone!