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On the occasion of their return to the AGNSW for '40 Years: Kaldor Public Art Projects', Gilbert & George spoke with Michael Fitzgerald about dancing to their own tune ...

Gilbert & George: We never felt we were performance artists. We made ourselves the centre of the art and kept at that - that's it - we became the subject. Once we started, it was forever. We are not switching it on and off. All the 2000-odd works stem from that, from the living sculpture, the centre of all the art that is us. A singing sculpture is a highlight of life. It's just a highlighted moment.

MF: While the art world today is rife with male 'double acts', such as Pierre et Gilles and Elmgreen & Dragset, the idea of collaboration, especially between two men, was not that common when you first began exploring portable and singing sculpture in the late 1960s.

G&G: Non-existent.

MF: One has to travel back over a hundred years to the Victorian age and its vogue for literary collaborations between men. How conscious were you of such traditions?

G&G: We never felt we were a collaboration. As we always say, we are two people but one artist. When we are invited to be in shows with artists who collaborate we always say, 'No thank you'. Collaborating suggests that two people put different things into the boiling pot. We don't feel we do that. Because we are always together, we are getting ideas together. Walking the streets of London, there are certain things that we like, certain things that we don't like. So we're taking images of stuff that we like, and we're making pictures out of the subjects that talk to us: religion, graffiti, sexuality. We are seeing it in front of us; we don't have to make big decisions ...

This article appears in excerpted form. You can read the entire article in Art & Australia's Winter 2010 issue.