ARTES

This book captures every aspect of Paris and its inhabitants: urban acrobats take to the streets, a sandaled nun crosses the capital on a city bike, extravagant partygoers strike memorable silhouettes during gay pride, children frolic in city fountains on a steamy summer day, and aging friends enjoy an aperitif at Les Deux Magots. The Parisian landscape is illuminated through photographs of the snow-covered Canal Saint-Martin at night, the Ferris wheel at the Place de la Concorde, a balloon launch at the July Column, and a Bastille Day aerial parade of military planes leaving ribbons of blue, white, and red smoke in their wake. Rare glimpses behind the scenes include a table set for intimate dining in the Salon des Ambassadeurs at the presidential Élysée Palace, the empty stage at the Opéra Comique, and a taxidermist at work at the natural history museum. From amateur fashionistas strutting their stuff to tourists posing with masterpieces in the Louvre to miniature dogs in miniature coats, this is an authentic portrait of Paris today.

On the fortieth anniversary of Pierre Commoy and Gilles Blanchard's romantic union, this volume traces four decades of artistic collaboration between the photographer and painter known as Pierre et Gilles. This year-by-year retrospective of their vast oeuvre, accompanied by an incisive essay by art critic Éric Troncy, showcases the genesis and development of their sublime, audacious, and explicitly confected fusion of photography and painting. Highly sophisticated and shamelessly sexy, their art--stylized, idealized painted photographs--synthesizes tropes drawn from celebrity and mainstream gay culture with timeless themes of religion, mythology, and beauty, and many works feature international stars including Madonna, Naomi Campbell, Dita Von Teese, Kylie Minogue, Karl Lagerfeld, Mick Jagger, and Iggy Pop. The book is available in a trade edition and in a limited art edition of 200 copies that features a signed and numbered limited edition print created especially for the book and presented in a deluxe clamshell case.