per set. Using paintbrushes, Gilles retouches a
chosen enlarged print with successive layers of
paint and glaze, in order to idealize the model, to
attenuate or accentuate certain features, or to add
interesting details to the whole image. The final
product is thus unique and irreplaceable. The
choice of frame is the final task, seeing that the
artists consider this accessory to be an essential
component of the image. They spend an average
of 12 days on one work.
Pierre et Gilles use friends, celebrities, or simply
unknowns as models. Their work consists almost
exclusively of portraits. In the foreground of their
images, male models pose as sailors, gigolos, street
toughs, boxers, gods, princes, saints and sinners,
martyrs, and historical villains. The female models
often portray the traditionalfemme fatale(embo-
died for example in the figure of Eve, Medusa, or
Salome ́), women at the cross, fairies, goddesses and
saints, bewitching sirens luring seamen to their
deaths, or evil enchantresses. The theatrical posing,
the presence of blood and tears, the physical perfec-
tion of the models are all characteristic of their
pictures. The same model is often seen playing con-
trasting, sometimes contradictory roles. Except for
the photographs taken in foreign locations during
their travels, the portraits are set in Utopic worlds.
Fields of technicolor flowers, vast blue skies with
puffy clouds, and glittering stars compose the lav-
ishly decorated backgrounds of their work.
It is the model, however, not the decor, who
remains the focal point of the picture. The setting
merely serves as an extension to what Pierre et
Gilles perceive to be hidden aspects of the model’s
persona, or as a glorifying and idealizing back-
ground to the portrait. Among their best-known
images are fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier in
a striped sailor shirt surrounded by daisies,
renowned French actress Catherine Deneuve as a
fairy princess with a painted on tiara floating in a
cloudy blue sky, and the German rock star Nina
Hagen as a rubber-clad housewife tied to a kitchen
chair. Their art often receives mixed reviews, as in
the case of the poster designed for the 1995 Aus-
tralian Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival,
which was criticized by some for reinforcing tradi-
tional gender stereotyping.
The subjects and symbols of Pierre et Gilles’s
images originate from sources as diverse as Amer-
ican urban myths, Oriental stereotypes, classical
and biblical tales, Eastern religions, and Parisian
chic. Dominant elements of French identity often
punctuate their work. Their painted photographs
represent a world of beauty, desire, and pleasure,
often steeped in religious allegory. Death, glamour,
glory, perverse innocence, and romance are among
their preferred themes.
Over the years, they have created a number of
series. Among them are: La Cre ́ation du monde
(1981) andLe Paradis(1981), staging a pure and
idealized world that makes no mention of sin and
redemption;Les Saints(1988–), ascribing to models
saintly perfection in order to create a world in which
beauty and emotion become tangible realities;Les
Plaisirs de la foreˆt(1996), which portrays a phantas-
magoric realm with mysterious and erotic overtones;
and the black-and-white series ‘‘La Rose et le Cou-
teau’’ (1998), inspired by photographic stereotypes of
the 1940s. In the 1990s, their work has grown pro-
gressively more sombre and more complex.
Pierre et Gilles’s work embodies the postmodern
fracture of the boundaries between art and popular
culture. By allowing fashion, queer sensibility, pre-
vailing trends, erotica, sentimentalism, mass-pro-
duced imagery, popular television shows, street
culture, fairy tales, and religion to penetrate deeply
their hybrid creations, the French duo challenge
established conventions and hierarchies of art and
realism. They were initially dismissed by critics as
kitsch, but are now gaining recognition through
their redefinition of the traditional iconographic
repertory. Refusing to represent in their art any
particular social ethic, Pierre et Gilles strive to cap-
ture seemingly fleeting moments of idealized beauty
and emotional intensity. Their images have gradu-
ally become one of the reference points in the art
world, while their strong roots deeply embedded in
popular culture and multiculturalism have caused
repercussions in the worlds of advertising, fashion,
music video, and publishing.
ChristinaIonescu
Seealso:Constructed Reality; Hand Coloring and
Hand Toning; Image Construction: Perspective;
Postmodernism; Representation and GenderBiography
Pierre, born in La Roche-sur-Yon, France; Gilles, born at
Le Havre, France. Met at a party, 1976; started to
collaborate artistically and traveled to Morocco, 1977;
designed the disco cover sleeve of Amanda Lear’sDia-
monds for Breakfast, 1979; debuted their first large series
‘‘La Cre ́ation du monde’’ and ‘‘Le Paradis,’’ 1981; first
personal exhibit at Galerie Texbraun, Paris, 1983; cre-
ated the seriesLes Naufrage ́s, 1985–1987; received the
Great Prize of Photography of the City of Paris, 1993;
retrospective of their 20 years of artistic collaboration at
the Maison Europe ́enne de la Photographie in Paris,
1996; retrospective at the Turun Taideomuseum in
Turku, Finland, 1999; first important U.S. exhibition,
2000–2001. Living and working in Paris.PIERRE ET GILLES