Pierre et Gilles, Baroque Surfers and Icons of Joyful Melancholy
They are two, and yet they see as one. For nearly half a century, Pierre et Gilles have moved through time like mediums of the visible, goldsmiths of the image where photography becomes painting, and reality slips into myth. At once stage directors, visual artists, costume designers, cinematographers and painters, they compose four-handed living tableaux where kitsch brushes against the sacred, and glamour flirts with the spiritual. This summer in Deauville, at Les Franciscaines, they cast their nets once more: the exhibition Mondes Marins, on view until January 4th, 2026, invites us to dive into their oceanic and symbolist world between memory, longing and beauty.
“We’ve always been fascinated by the sea, by its promises and its shipwrecks. It’s both refuge and danger, a childhood dream and an adult memory.” – Pierre
In their universe, the sea is no mere backdrop. It’s a character, a breath, an entire world. It is a womb and an enigma. It evokes the origins, Gilles’ native of Le Havre, Pierre from Vendée beaches, working-class ports, lighthouses lost in fog, sailors who drift in and out of sight, never to be held. It is also the stage for a sensual and melancholic imagination, where the figures of the sailor, the castaway, the merman or the siren become queer archetypes—messengers of a restless tenderness.
Mondes Marins is not a themed exhibition; it’s an inner odyssey. A poetic cartography of their emotions, of sunken dreams, of intimate battles.
From the very first room, the tone is set. A young siren-soldier with angelic blondness — Yulian Antukh, alias Être marin — meets our gaze, toy rifle in hand. The blue of his beret mirrors the hand-painted backdrop, where a sea-halo drifts. Everything is there: threatened innocence, frozen beauty, the latent tension between childhood and eroticism, between trinkets and tragedy.
In the world of Pierre and Gilles, images are double-edged. They captivate at first glance, then crack open as we look deeper. This isn’t pop art—it’s tragic pop, dressed in light, disguised as a carnival.
“Our characters always live between two worlds, as if suspended. They’re earthly angels, or humans too beautiful for this world.” – Gilles
The exhibition unfolds like an intricate, generous logbook. Sailors and stripes, seedy ports and forgotten brothels, mystical sea beds, protective deities… each section is a stopover in a geography of desire. Along the way, we encounter Étienne Daho, a cherished muse and loyal friend; the faces of Sylvie Vartan, Isabelle Huppert, Nina Hagen, Tahar Rahim, Jean-Paul Gaultier, but also anonymous beauties, elevated for their presence, their fragility, their inner glow. For Pierre and Gilles, beauty is never conventional. It is rare, strange, moving. It springs from a single detail—a lost gaze, a half-smile, a shimmer of loneliness in the glitter.
Yet make no mistake: beneath the enchantment lie serious truths. They speak of their lost ones—friends taken by AIDS, the night’s castaways, past loves. They speak too of a world unraveling, of nature profaned, of a climate in crisis. Their underwater worlds, peopled with trinket-fish, submerged statues and invisible tears, echo our contemporary vertigo. And though their sirens smile, they sometimes sing sorrow.
“We’ve always wanted to show beauty—even in pain. A tear in a made-up eye is still a form of light.” – Pierre
There is, throughout their work, a moving fidelity: to youth, to love, to color, to craftsmanship. Everything is handmade. Nothing is accidental. Sets are built in their studio, props are found or invented, each photo painstakingly hand-painted, like an Orthodox icon or a Bollywood poster. It is a labor of love—slow, meticulous, almost sacred. A defiance of speed, of forgetfulness, of today’s bland uniformity.
Pierre and Gilles are not provocateurs. They are poets. Painters of souls and bodies, baroque priests celebrating a cult of light in an ever-darkening world. They do not seek to shock but to awaken. To stir in us something long-buried: the beauty of artifice, the tenderness of dreams, the nostalgia for a world where sailors wore their hearts on their sleeves and boys had sirens in their eyes.
At Les Franciscaines, a former convent turned museum, they’ve found the perfect setting to let their marine hymn resonate. The exhibition is a voyage, an ex-voto to the sea and to memory. A slow crossing, precious and enveloping.
And when we emerge, our hearts are swollen like sails—a little adrift, but dazzled.
Instagram : @pierreetgilles_gilles @pierre_pierreetgilles @franciscaines.deauville
Practical Information
Exhibition: Mondes Marins by Pierre et Gilles
Dates: June 22, 2024 – January 4, 2026
Venue: Les Franciscaines – Musée de Deauville
145B Avenue de la République, 14800 Deauville, France
Opening Hours:
Tuesday to Sunday, 10:30 AM – 6:30 PM
Closed on Mondays (except public holidays)
Tickets:
Full price: €10
Reduced: €5 (students, under 18s, job seekers, etc.)
Free for children under 11 and members
Website & Reservations:
www.lesfranciscaines.fr
