Pierre et Gilles at the Museum of Music of the Philarmonie de Paris

Pierre et Gilles are the protagonists of the exhibition La fabrique des idoles hosted at the Museum of Music of the Philharmonie de Paris, where visitors can walk into teenager’s room, an Hindu temple and a Paris club in full swing in the ‘80s while passing by a votive niche in a Naples alley, all among strobe lights, glitters, faces, colors, and exaggerated kitsch
Pierre et Gilles Legend Madonna 1995 Collezione privata Pierre et Gilles

Pierre et Gilles are the protagonists of the exhibition La fabrique des idoles hosted at the Museum of Music of the Philharmonie de Paris, where visitors can walk into teenager’s room, an Hindu temple and a Paris club in full swing in the ‘80s while passing by a votive niche in a Naples alley, all among strobe lights, glitters, faces, colors, and exaggerated kitsch.

Kitsch of an absolute aesthetic quality. A shining and at the same time melancholy path, composed of 110 photo-paintings, 25 album covers, 200 memorabilia, 6 video clips and around 140 music tracks free for listening from the audio guides.

Pierre et Gilles Sainte Mary MacKillop Kylie Minogue 1995 Collezione privata Pierre et Gilles
Pierre et Gilles Sainte Mary MacKillop Kylie Minogue 1995 Collezione privata Pierre et Gilles

Over the last forty years, Pierre et Gilles, two soulmates that met in 1976 “at a party”, as they love to recount, have been able to present a hybrid art, a blend of painting and photography, reality and wonder, dream and nightmare, where portraits take central stage. Unknown people, universal stars, underground groups and various singers offered to be “reinterpreted” in sacrilegious (and sometimes blaspheme), imaginative, colorful or rather dark versions, in the construction of what they themselves call a “an iconoclast, sentimental pantheon”.

Pierre et Gilles Nina Hagen Collezione Noirmontartproduction Parigi Pierre et Gilles
Pierre et Gilles Nina Hagen Collezione Noirmontartproduction Parigi Pierre et Gilles

The artists who posed for the duo included, for example, MadonnaMarylin MansonBoy GeorgeStromaeKylie MinogueDita Von Teese and Michael Jackson. Every model was asked to pose in complex scenes set up in studio. The pictures later underwent a long, elaborated pictorial process that ended with the creation of a frame for the painting.

Pierre et Gilles Les Deux Marins Autoportrait 1993 Museum of Fine Arts Houston Pierre et Gilles
Pierre et Gilles Les Deux Marins Autoportrait 1993 Museum of Fine Arts Houston Pierre et Gilles

The exhibition is also the opportunity to tell a story, or actually multiple stories, thus exploring Pierre et Gilles’ relationship with music and the whole universe that gravitates around it. The artists created a playlist to go with every portrait, to evoke the memories and emotions associated with its creation in visitors. They are invited to enjoy and draw energy from this fantastic universe, as well as to plunge into the ambience that was at the origin of what may be considered as an idol in contemporary times.

Pierre et Gilles Extase Arielle Dombasle 2002 Collezione privata Parigi Pierre et Gilles
Pierre et Gilles Extase Arielle Dombasle 2002 Collezione privata Parigi Pierre et Gilles

The fourth section of the exhibition path is entirely taken by the so-called  “altar of music”, something really similar to a votive niche dedicated to the Vergin and the Saints, but also to Maradona, with altars that can be very frequently seen in the alleys of Naples. Sacred and profane. In the middle of the set-up, a small screen projects the musical videos that the duo filmed in the ‘80s. A triumph of that “politically incorrect” that only that decade could produce, with no need for half measures.

Pierre et Gilles La Madone aux fleurs Clara Luciani Collection Pierre et Gilles Courtesy Galerie Templon Paris Brussels Pierre et Gilles
Pierre et Gilles La Madone aux fleurs Clara Luciani Collection Pierre et Gilles Courtesy Galerie Templon Paris Brussels Pierre et Gilles

La fabrique des idoles, the “factory of idols”, is a powerhouse of excess, or excesses, frills and sequins, but mostly an occasion to reflect on how human beings of any time and place tend to represent something considered as sacred, or profane, as long as it is perceived as unique and special. An opportunity to analyze the human psychology and a way to picture and imagine the exceptional.

Paris, until February 23, 2020
Pierre et Gilles – La Fabrique des idoles
MUSÉE DE LA MUSIQUE
221, avenue Jean-Jaurès
https://philharmoniedeparis.fr
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