“The Sun sets on Western double standards” Bowl of Muesli, 1879.
A chance encounter with a wall painting in Prague depicting Pandas teaching children to paint. The discovery of a memorial to “witch” burning in 1690 in Sindelfingen next to the Church of St Martin. The Church of St Martin transforms, in Andrew’s imagination, in to a structure covered with a living texture of Tiger fur. Like a Friday night, bored, watching YouTube on a Leek Phone, the images, constant adverts and information all mix together. Andrew sees a photo of Qui Jin, holding a knife, in the Zhejiang Provincial Museum in Hangzhou, the martyred feminist revolutionary (1875-1901) becomes a Holy Brocoli whose mystic powers are fueled by Chinese Red Bull and Binlang. And then back into the Tiger fur Church…
In Chufan Wang’s essay on the work of Andrew Gilbert “The Angelus Novus of History and Andrew’s Theater” (published by the Delta Inst, Hangzhou, 2025) she draws a parallel between Andrew’s visions and Walter Benjamin’s reaction to Paul Klee’s 1918 ‘Angelus Novus’ “…a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. The crazy kingdom of Scottish artist Andrew Gilbert is exactly like this. Brutal military conquests in the colonial era, alongside excessive desires in contemporary consumer society, were sent into a blending machine…”
The living Tiger fur Church texture continues to spread…
While researching the Boxer Rebellion (1899–1901), an anti-imperialist and millennialist uprising, Andrew sees a Chinese illustration from 1892 depicting tigers eating sheep. The sheep representing the arrogant colonial invaders and Christian missionaries are devoured by the Chinese resistance. The rebellion is crushed by the Axis of Imperialism – the Empires of Austria-Hungary, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. Several moments from the Boxer Rebellion appear as Church altar paintings in “Tiger Church” (150×250 cm, 2024) – the assassination of the German Diplomat Clemens von Keteler in Beijing in 1900. His takeaway coffee and Rewe shopping bag fall to the floor causing his sausages and carrots to break. The interior of the imagined Tiger fur Church reminds Andrew of the fictitious idols described in Crusader propaganda. Tancred is described as destroying an idol of Mohammed in Jerusalem in 1099 during the Christian massacre of Muslims. In the Tiger Church the central altar painting depicts a supermarket courgette with tiger head idol. From this central altar, flanked by Colonial Martyrs, fly modern drones outwards in to the world, bringing “civilization” and colonial genocide in 2024. In the Tiger Church German newsagent Qui Jin’s book of poetry is now a best seller, while one of the tiger congregations holds the diaries of the English antiwar activist Emily Hobhouse (1860–1926). Other Tigers, including the Priest wearing a human skin cloak, carry Leek Phones ™. A small painting in the Tiger Church of a Xhosa warrior in Southern Africa is another reference to millennialism as a reaction to colonialism. During all of this the texture of the Tiger Fur Church still seems to move and cover everything.
For a moment the tigers fur texture that is slowly covering all the world transforms in to bright colour texture of Parrot feathers. In “The Church of John Chilembwe transforms in to parrot feathers” 50×65 cm, 2024, the Church pulpit of John Chilembwe transforms in to essence of parrot feather energy. The church interior depicts the 1915 anti colonial uprising in Nyasaland, now Malawi. Described as another example of anti-colonial millennialism, the Chilembwe Uprising was a response to colonial taxes and the British demand that African subjects fight for the British Empire against the German Empire. On the 23rd of January 1915 the Scottish landowner William Jervis Livingstone was decapitated by the resistance and his head, as depicted by Andrew, was impaled on the Church pulpit by Chilembwe. The tiger devouring the sheep appears again as a painting nailed to the pulpit. After further research Andrew read that Livingstone was descended from the Clan MacLea, a name later anglicized to Livingstone. In a frame of parrot feather texture, the moment the Appin banner is rescued from Culloden battle in 1746 by Donald Livingstone can be seen. The other Jacobite banners were captured and publicly burned in Edinburgh by the British Government. On the other side of the river, which a sheep has crossed, the decapitation of William Jervis Livingstone is shown. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner has painted Charles Edward Stewart in 1745 and a Brücke Museum tote bag is held by the corpse of Livingstone, perhaps a reference to Andrew’s first pilgrimage to Berlin in 1999 and later Davos, or a parody of European romanticised views of the so called “primitive”. A news page on the wall announces the execution of the “traitors” and that Chilembwe himself is killed. A portrait of Chief Bambatha who led the Zulu anti poll tax rebellion in 1906 can also be seen.
Once the parrot feathers transform back into Tiger fur energy and briefly stop moving we can observe them safely. The living energy of tiger fur perhaps represents Andrew’s childhood obsession with a living texture that unites all objects. This moving texture would engulf all objects and free them of their rational function. New objects would form and be given new names, with no relation to their function. Andrew’s use of mirrors in his work attempts to capture this living texture. For example, in 2002 at Edinburgh College of Art he placed shards of mirror in cooking pots over which carrots on strings would move when the ends of the strings were pulled by the Priest or Shaman, who, like the Prophet Elijah at the Pesach dinner, is yet to arrive. But to be clear that Andrew has not retreated in to the very millennialism that he is currently researching we are clearly reminded that the Tiger Church Andrew is trapped in is also here and now in contemporary reality. In „Opium Wars“ (60×50 cm 2024), the 19th century British assault on China clearly echoes contemporary colonial U.S propaganda. An oil painting shows Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Branson as the Four Apostles transformed in to a western primitive tribal fetish object. The witch burning of Sindelfingen connects to today’s rise of Christian Nationalism in the US and the Far Right across Europe. The beautiful Panda in ballet dress, teaching Bonnie Prince Charlie to paint, seems oblivious to the Prince painting contemporary apartment blocks and hospitals being bombed by F16s and drones.
And so after a brief Emperor Andrew Instant Coffee break, the texture of living Tiger fur energy begins to move again …
Holy Brocoli 6.1.25
In his works on paper and large-scale installations, Andrew Gilbert (b. 1980, Edinburgh, UK, lives and works in Berlin) combines historical facts with fictive situations as well as the visionary with the absurd. The impulse is provided mostly by incidents connected with colonialism, especially that of the British Empire. Gilbert depicts the repetition of history and the impact of 19th-century imperialism on today. Past and upcoming exhibitions include Gallery of Modern Art in Hradec Králové, CZ (2025); The Delta INST, Hangzhou, China (2024); Lakeside Arts, Nottingham (2023); Sperling, Munich (2025, 2022, 2020, 2018, 2016); Syker Vorwerk, Syke (2022); Kunstverein Friedrichshafen (2020); Overbeck Gesellschaft, Lübeck (2016); Singapore National Gallery (2017); Tate Britain, London (2015); Blank Projects, Cape Town (2015); Sommerall, Edinburgh (2014)
