Pierre et Gilles (Pierre & Gilles) [Hardcover]

Dan Cameron (Author), Pierre Commoy (Photographer), Gilles Blanchard (Painter), Lisa Phillips (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2000

The first American retrospective of the powerful, extravagent work of this European

Editorial Reviews

Review

A beautiful catalog -- HX Magazine, September 29, 2000

An absurdly elegant expression of gay aestheticism -- Gay Times, September 2000

An alternative universe [that] could easily be heaven -- Flaunt, September 2000

Exquisite ... charged with erotic energy -- Echo Magazine, September 14-27, 2000

Their creations bristle with audacity, kitschy deadpanning, boldly playful sexiness, and ... a tinge of mystery. -- Out Magazine, September 2000

From the Inside Flap

Unlike many contemporary artists whose work is based on theories of popular culture, Pierre et Gilles' artistic achievement is deliberately fused with popular culture in the present tense. Beginning with their early celebrity portraits of the late 1970s (Iggy Pop, Yves Saint-Laurent), Pierre et Gilles have created a visual world in which artifice and reality are inseparable. Employing props, make-up, costumes, and lighting that emphasize the staged quality of their photographic sets, Pierre et Gilles pursue an ideal beauty in their extravagant, hand-painted photographs that systematically demolishes any distinction between kitsch and expressions of the sublime. Both the artists and their subjects seem to insist on the complete believability of their allegorical characters, at the same time as they revel in the evidence that everything in their photographs is an illusion.

Pierre et Gilles' roots in commercial illustration for magazine and record album covers have resulted in an extraordinarily powerful combination of celebrity culture and archetypal Christian and mythological iconography. The very perfection of the beautiful boys and glamorous, weeping women who populate their artifical paradise hints at the tragedy of doomed youth and fleeting innocence that becomes increasingly explicit in their later, darker work. Eros and Thanatos are Pierre et Gilles' abiding themes, present from the start in their images of martyred saints, and coming increasingly to the fore in the sinister shadows and almost occult iconography of their latest pieces.

This exquisitely produced book provides a new and insightful assessment of this unique, idyllic marriage of photography and painting by a leading contemporary art critic, examining the emergence of a gay aesthetic and a utopian popular culture in the first substantial overview of Pierre et Gilles' career to include their latest, hitherto unpublished work.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 120 pages
• Publisher: Merrell Holberton (November 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 185894113X
• ISBN-13: 978-1858941134
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,833,162 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Introduction.........., December 6, 2000

By 

Joseph J. Hanssen "Joe" (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Pierre et Gilles (Pierre & Gilles) (Hardcover)

This beautiful produced book , accompanying a major exhibition at the new Museum of Contemporary Art, in New York, is a wonderful introduction for anyone to Pierre & Gilles beautiful & unique combination of photography and painting. I have been a fan of Pierre & Gilles for many years, and have enjoyed all of the wonderful collection of books published about them over the years, but this book was indeed welcomed because it has a lot of their new unpublished photographic paintings. Art critic & curator, Dan Cameron, gives a great overview & history of Pierre & Gille's photographic paintings as well as a complete explanation of all of the images presented in this book. It's very insightful and I learned a lot more than I knew before.

So if you are a true fan of Pierre & Gilles work you definitely should have this beautiful book in your collection, or if their work is new to you this is one of the best introductions to their talented and very unique photography.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Increidible Look into the eyes of Pierre Et Gilles, December 4, 2000

By 

"jamesbond_65" (San Juan, Puerto Rico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pierre et Gilles (Pierre & Gilles) (Hardcover)

These two artist are some of the most avantgard and ambicouis photographers of our time. With their representations of saints and their homoerotic pieces they have something for jsut about anybody. I recommmend this book to anyone who is looking to add a very different type of art to their home library!

5.0 out of 5 stars Flaunt (From a Critic), August 21, 2006

By 

Earl R. Sutton "earlsutton" (Detroit, MI, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pierre et Gilles (Pierre & Gilles) (Hardcover)

"An alternative universe that ... could easily be heaven ... absurdly elegant ... A beautiful catalogue ... Their creations bristle with audacity, kitschy deadpanning, boldly playful sexiness, and ... a tinge of mystery ... Exquisite."