Pierre et Gilles
France • born: 1950 & 1953
Straight to the Heart 

Two shooting stars collided fifty years ago and created their own artistic galaxy. This was the moment when Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard met and almost instantly formed the iconic duo Pierre et Gilles.

For half a century, their romantic and creative partnership has produced portraits that fuse photography and painting. These images are steeped in art and popular culture and have taken on an almost mythical status over time.

The world of Pierre et Gilles is an unconventional, yet tender series of psychedelic portraits. Some faces will be familiar: the Belgian pop star Stromae, the fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, and the French actor Isabelle Huppert. Others trace a line through French and European popular music: the singer Étienne Daho, the pop icon Sylvie Vartan, the German punk singer Nina Hagen, and the French singer Clara Luciani. Not only stars, but also friends and loved ones, have stepped in front of the duo’s lens, occasionally dressed as sailors or soldiers, to be immortalised in a photograph then idealised with a paintbrush. The result is a dazzling blend of myth, religion and fairy tale, firmly anchored in the realities of today’s world.

Their style is ‘baroque,’ aiming to create icons rather than to pursue realism or detachment. Each portrait is meticulously staged, drawing on the aesthetics of classical painting. Pierre et Gilles use hand-painted backdrops, ornate frames, saturated colours and reimagined symbols, with abundant references to religious and classical imagery. The result is joyful chaos: a carefully crafted disorder.

The duo has a clear, consistent way of working: initial sketches, gathering props, make-up, costumes, and careful set preparation. Once Pierre has taken the photograph, Gilles reworks it in paint, enhancing and embellishing the image. The finished pieces are hypnotic. Everything gleams, skin glows, eyes shine, and the overall effect is flamboyant, kitsch and undeniably sublime.

This flamboyant series of portraits tells the story of fifty years of French cultural life. The work of Pierre et Gilles captures a fundamental aspect of France: a love of theatre, extravagance, the sacred, the sublime and the burlesque. French society delights in seeing itself in the mirror, especially when that mirror is golden, colourful, and playfully exaggerated.

Pierre et Gilles do not simply photograph France; they reinvent it in their imagination and have been doing so for fifty years. 
 

With the support of ‘Galerie Daniel Templon.’ 

Labyrinthe.