Gilbert and George met at London's St. Martin's School of Art in 1967 and have been inseparable ever since. In the 1970s Gilbert and George put on metallic make-up and became "living sculptures." Standing atop a table, they would sing a popular ditty, accompanied by an old-fashioned gramophone.
Urban creatures by choice, Gilbert and George have sought to identify with nature by portraying themselves, respectfully suited, against the backdrop of London's Kew Gardens. Their poses are a tongue-in-cheek allusion to British poets' search, in centuries past, for sustenance and renewal from nature. Parked collapses the two meanings of the word "park" into one as it shows the "living sculptures," stiffly seated one behind the other, to create a receding perspective that draws our eye to a tree in bloom.
Artist Gilbert and George, English, established 1967
Title
  • Parked
Date 1987
Medium gelatin-silver print with pochoir
Dimensions Overall: 119 × 139 inches (302.3 cm × 3 m 53.1 cm)
Credit Line Founders Society Purchase with funds from Founders Junior Council and the Friends of Modern Art, in memory of Samuel J. Wagstaff, Jr.
Accession Number 1988.11
Department Contemporary Art after 1950
Not On View
Signed Signed, lower right: Gilbert & George
Inscriptions Inscribed, lower right: PARKED 1987
The artists, Gilbert and George;
(Anthony D'Offay Gallery, London, England);
1988-present, purchase by the Detroit Institute of Arts (Detroit, Michigan, USA)
Nawrocki, Dennis. "Gilbert & George: Parked in nature," Bulletin of the DIA vol. 65, no. 1, 1989, p. 5-21, (ill).

Bulletin of the DIA 64, no. 2/3, 1988, p. 36, fig. 24, (ill).