The Fantastical World of Pierre et Gilles
Pierre et Gilles
The Fun, The Fierce, The Fantastical. The issue where a French fairy tale washed up on West Broadway.
As a Special Projects Editor for Hotel Venus magazine, I've already had the opportunity to interview one of my creative heroes, Floria Sigismondi, photograph downtown club kids and spend time around artists, musicians, designers, and photographers whose work has shaped visual culture for years. I find myself fascinated by image-makers, the people responsible for creating the visual language that defines the times.
For the second issue of Hotel Venus, I had the opportunity to feature the legendary French artistic duo Pierre et Gilles whose work has influenced everything from fashion photography and advertising to music videos and contemporary art.
And our cover?
Iconic.
From the archive · the Hotel Venus yearsIf you have never heard their names, here is why I could barely sit still for this one.
Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard are a French duo who have been a real-life couple since 1976, having started living and working together only a few months after they first met. Their art is peopled by their friends and family, famous and anonymous alike, who appear in lavish, life-size sets the two of them build by hand inside their own studio.
This is exactly the kind of encounter I started doing this work for. I am endlessly drawn to image-makers, the people quietly writing the visual language of their time, and few people alive have written more of it than these two. Getting to feature them felt less like an assignment and more like a pilgrimage.
The method is unhurried and almost devotional. Pierre takes the photograph inside those constructed worlds. Gilles then becomes the painter, applying color and airbrush directly onto the image once it has been printed onto canvas. A single picture can take months. Nothing about it is casual, and nothing about it is fast.
When I asked how they do it together, the answer was simple. "Our work is our life," they told me, and they meant it literally. They are honest that working side by side can be difficult, and just as honest that working alone would be harder. After nearly fifty years, the seam between the two of them has all but disappeared.
Their signature is unmistakable. Religion, mythology, classical painting and queer cinema, all folded into one saturated, almost saccharine, dreamlike pop reality. Saints, sailors, sea queens and pop stars, every one of them lit like a devotional card.
They've been photographing some of the biggest names since the 80s among them Madonna, Kylie Minogue, Marilyn Manson and Marc Jacobs. Some of my own favorites, though, are the album covers they made for Nina Hagen and Siouxsie Sioux.
And underneath all the glitter, the work has always carried weight. They have returned again and again to the AIDS epidemic, the Iraq War, same-sex marriage. Their portraits often double as quiet acts of resistance, gentle romanticism standing in for a much larger argument about peace, human rights, and love.
What makes their work so important goes far beyond aesthetics.
Long before diversity became a marketing strategy, Pierre et Gilles were creating images that celebrated queer identity. They've elevated LGBTQ+ culture with the same reverence traditionally reserved for saints, royalty, and mythological figures. For generations of young people searching for representation, their work offered something rare: visibility without apology.
Their images are elaborate, theatrical, and unapologetically romantic, drawing equally from religious iconography, Bollywood cinema, mythology, fairy tales, sailors, pop stars, and lovers. Yet beneath the glitter and saturated colors is something surprisingly radical. Their portraits quietly challenge assumptions about desire, gender, and belonging.
Looking through their photographs, it becomes obvious how much contemporary visual culture owes to them. The highly stylized worlds we now associate with fashion campaigns, music videos, and celebrity portraiture often trace their roots back to the dreamlike universes Pierre et Gilles were creating decades earlier.
What stays with meThey are also so generous and kind to work with. Behind the fantasy is an enduring belief that all people deserve to be celebrated. Their work transforms individuals into icons, not because they are famous, but because they are worthy of attention.
The Cover
The Fun, The Fierce, The Fantastical.
Hi everyone, welcome to my independent platform of conversations across art, fashion, music, film, and nightlife culture. Read all interviews here.
With deep appreciation for their genius and kindness, merci Pierre et Gilles.