The Gilbert & George Centre opened in April this year, a few steps from the artists’ home in Fournier Street. Its inaugural exhibition, The Paradisical Pictures, is an interesting one. The pictures, intensely colored like all their recent work, feature Gilbert and George, staring out from behind and sometimes partly concealed by rotting vegetation and flowers. Their eyes are reddened, perhaps by fatigue, grief, or demonic power. Are these sinister images of decay and death some kind of exhortation to reverse the damage we are all inflicting on the world? Like almost all their work, the surface playfulness, the cheerful vividness of the colors, and the omnipresence of the artists themselves, are counterpoints to the deep seriousness of the exhibition’s message. The Centre itself consolidates the presence of Gilbert and George in Spitalfields, giving them a permanent place to display their work in a neighborhood they have called home since 1968.

From East London I headed to Trafalgar Square, the heart of London’s traditional art establishment, and The National Portrait Gallery. The NPG reopened in June after being closed for three years. Among other things, the collection was re-hung during the closure, and I was interested to see the results. That wasn’t as easy as I had hoped because half of London had the same idea. The galleries were very crowded – a good thing, of course – so I restricted my trip to some of the rooms on the second floor and to a wonderful small exhibition dedicated to the sketchbooks of Lucian Freud. I’ll certainly be going back, but next time I’ll choose the time more wisely.

Ordovas, a leading commercial gallery, has its premises in Savile Row, a few minutes’ walk from the NPG. I try to make a visit whenever I’m in London because its exhibitions, though small, are always curated with real care and always seem to include treasures I’ve never seen. My most recent visit was no exception. Entitled Endless Variations, it features only eight works, four by Francis Bacon and four by Andy Warhol. It claims to “explore common interests and influences shared by the artists”. I am not convinced, but what matters is the opportunity to see up close three masterworks by Bacon, Portrait of Henrietta Moraes (1969), Study for Portrait of John Edwards (1984), and Three Studies for Portrait of George Dyer (1964). All are magnificent, confirming, if confirmation were needed, that Bacon was one the greatest painters of the late 20th century. Warhol may be the better known of the two, but his work looks trivial and vacuous in this setting.