PIERRE COMMOY, the photographer, was born in 1949 in La Roche-sur-Yon. GILLES BLANCHARD, the painter, was born in 1953 in Le Havre. Thirty years on and over 700 photo/painted portraits have been produced to their standard formula: a theatrical set-design frames a subject (preferably) male; (preferably) nude; and (preferably) a celebrity. Surrounded by feathers, flowers, glitter, stage blood, etc, the subject is transformed into a figure of classical mythology, a saint, an archetype, a porn or pop star - or an allegory of Death, of Innocence...
A mishmash of popular culture and fashion imagery ‘is invoked and used to saturation point’ (1). The actress Arielle Dombasle, strangely distant as Sainte Blandine, turns her back on a stuffed lion. Artist Christian Boltanski poses as the great exemplar of Christian charity, Saint Vincent de Paul. Kylie Minogue, wearing bright lipstick and dressed as a nun, rides a white wooden horse and is Saint Marie MacKillop. Claude François, the very popular French singer who died at 39 - electrocuted in his bath in 1978 - looks out from heavenly skies. Serge Gainsbourg, in a prison cell, is sullen in a peerless moonlight. French businessman and art collector François Pinault represents the children’s literature hero, Captain Nemo. Whether portraying Hercules or Jeff Stryker, ‘the work of Pierre et Gilles is unusual in showing no major stylistic development. […] From the late seventies (and especially since 1981 and their seminal Adam et Ève), their visual vocabulary and working practice have set into a serene immutability‘.(2).
Today their portraits have become a camp trademark and are as true to reality as Astro-Turf is to grass. The flagrant oblivion of Pierre & Gilles towards any awkward realities of history and culture, does have a Ship-of-Fools quality to it. Also, their oeuvre, redolent with recycled popular icons, cute heroes and fantasized ideals, has a nightmarish undertone. Nevertheless, their portraits are immensely popular and any star worthy of Paris Match wants to be in one. Celebrities need to be talked about, spied on, yearned over. They are locked into the sadistic ratings game of fame. So they flock and befriend Pierre & Gilles - Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger, Yves Saint Laurent, Iggy Pop. Jean-Paul Gaultier. Sylvie Vartan, Madonna, Marc Almond, Nina Hagen and Rupert Everett have all been subjects. Even Catherine Deneuve finds: ‘they move me and please me deeply‘.
The ‘sulphur loveliness’(3) of fashion photography and advertising is where this art comes from, and where it belongs: amid exclusive shopping, outrageous price tags and very private parties that are the embodiment of social status. Here, perfection is not terrible but beautiful, yearned for and everlasting. Pierre & Gilles are part of a global glitterati who serve up happiness as exquisite corn and battered cliché. The stagnant male studs in Pierre & Gilles’ blended ideals certainly don’t sweat. Even vomit is portrayed as scentless, precious diamonds (L’escale, petit matin, 2003). In an erotic image of 1996, a naked man has his head and torso ‘splattered by the photo stylist’s equivalent of semen‘.(4). Gilles explains: ‘Johnny was originally meant to be a beautiful young thug, but he turned into something more vulnerable. It’s fake cum, just something we concocted. I think we used shampoo‘.
Why is this schmaltzy kitsch so popular? Pierre Ardenne suggests that the ‘niceness’ of Pierre & Gilles has something to do with it. ‘The definition of the French equivalent, gentillesse... fits the work of Pierre et Gilles like a glove’: that which pleases by the familiar grace of its forms, its appearance, its manners. (Dictionary Le Robert).
Make up your own mind at the Jeu de Paume in Paris where Pierre & Gilles exhibit over 135 of their works from June to September 2007.
PHOTOICON Magazine acknowledges the generous assistance of Eva Bechmann in preparing this feature.
N O T E S
(1) Pierre Ardenne - Catalogue to the exhibition Pierre et Gilles: Double-Je 1976-2007, Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, June 26 - September 23, 2007
(2) Éric Troncy, Pierre et Gilles. Sailors & Sea, Cologne: Taschen, 2005
(3) The Munich Mannequins, Sylvia Plath (1963)
(4) Dan Cameron, ‘In the Name of Love,’ in Pierre et Gilles, Cologne: Taschen, 1997
