“It’s one of those things that gets better with 
time. These books are passed between artists 
as gifts, and getting one from someone you 
look up to means that you’ve really made it.” 
Having been shown their work on a somewhat 
peculiar date with a somewhat immodest poet/
artist/editor person, my introduction to the 
couple and surrealist photography duo known 
as Pierre et Gilles was loaded to say the least. 
He ended up using the book in our conversation 
as a strategic means to an end, one that I sort 
of fell for, before succumbing to the moat of 
inebriation and overall failure to hoist myself 
back onto the drawbridge. With regret, I must 
inform that my self-important and multifaceted 
fantasy man is no longer in the picture. Despite 
that night’s tile placement in the collective 
mosaic of uneasy semi-romantic encounters, 
however, its memory holds a lot of water for 
me — it served as a keystone exposure to really 
great queer art. The kind that needs to be 
experienced in person, on a page.
Pierre Comoy and Gilles Blanchard are well 
into their fifth decade of doing what they do: 
marrying fashion photography, portraiture, 
painting and a sensibility steeped heavily in 
camp and magical realism to build worlds, 
concepts taken to the highest extreme, befitting 
whoever is in front of the camera. They have 
several photo books, the most recent of which 
celebrates their 40th anniversary and compiles 
some of the work they are most well known for. 
Their several magazine covers include Out, 
Numero and Fucking Young!. They’ve worked 
with models, muses, artists, friends and larger 
than life figures (a particular favorite is an over-
blossomed vignette of Marilyn Manson and 
Dita von Teese), all while manipulating each 
image to bend in line with their overarching 
viewpoint.
Pierre et Gilles create drama. They are 
immersive. They are jouissance distilled 
in an image, in a single expression that is 
at once complicated and crystal clear, then 
cast throughout like speckled debris. They 
democratize the Venus, an art historical 
trope that positions the depicted figure as an 
aesthetic celebration, in such a way that women 
are exalted and men become objects of desire. 
They are feminized. Hairy-chested masculinity 
is given its day in the sun, make no mistake, but 
the men in the photographs are not men in the 
traditional sense. Strength and gravitas are 
undermined by their placement on a dinner 
tray, while the feminine looks you in the eye, 
pulling you through the fourth wall as though 
the barrier is nothing but a flimsy partition. 
And then there’s the ambiguous soup of flesh 
that resides somewhere in between those two 
poles. Religious iconography, phallic weaponry, 
political affiliations, Greek mythology and 
other cultural cliches are mobilized to subvert 
the more implicit markers of identity. They give 
breathtaking scenes, each threaded with teases 
and a touch of humour, creating a space for the 
viewer to look into themselves without raising 
the stakes to those of life and death. It can be 

fun to look at, or it can be something else.
It doesn’t quite come alive through a 
computer screen. Not like it does in print. Even 
as a reproduction of the original work, most 
of which are expanded photographs painted 
over to achieve their full effect, the textural 
interplay, the vividness of some elements 
contrasting with the smooth grain of film, 
make sense. The feeling of immediacy that 
comes with holding a bound photo book or 
a magazine with nice, thick paper cannot be 
replicated, nor can the experience of being able 
to flip through one and get completely lost in 
it — coming back up for air with a perfectly 
coherent understanding of what the artists 
and everyone involved in its publication meant 
to communicate, even if that understanding is 
unique to you.
Print media has been “dying” for a long time, 
but in that death, or at least relegation to niche 
markets, there is a great deal of personal value 
placed on what we choose to fill our shelves 
with. In the information age and the apparent 
mass exodus of trees, the only things we can 
afford to keep around are those that move us, 
challenge us and inspire us to create and be 
better people. Pierre et Gilles, to me, is joy. Their 
work represents the ability to weave through 
the world with all of its weight and create 
something worth looking at. If homoerotic 
portraits of communists adorned with wreaths 
of red roses and crystal tears aren’t your thing, 
OK. I hear that. And yet the point remains. 
Regardless of what ill-fated endeavors lead to 
its discovery, when something that carries real 
weight makes itself known, it’s important to 
hold on to it.

The paper-bound legacy
of the great Pierre et Gilles

SAM KREMKE
Daily Arts Wrtier

MOVIECILPS

This 
is 
it, 
the 
writing 
opportunity I’ve been waiting for 
my whole life: the chance to wax 
poetic about a Colin Firth movie. 
When asked to think about 
the representation of paper in 
film, the immediate thought that 
comes to mind for most romantic 
comedy fanatics is this scene 
from “Love Actually.” I know 
it did for me. If you’ve seen the 
movie, you’ll know exactly which 
scene I’m talking about. 
In the scene, Jamie (Colin 
Firth, “The King’s Speech”) is 
working diligently on his novel, 
which he tellingly chooses to 
write with a typewriter. Why 
use a typewriter? He could 
have easily used a laptop — 
2003 is not as ancient a time 
as we believe it to be. There is 
something inherently romantic 
about 
a 
typewriter, 
though, 
and people who use them are 
unquestionably engaging in a 
kind of performance when they 
do so. The use of a typewriter, 
or any method of writing that 
doesn’t involve a screen for that 
matter, 
implies 
seriousness, 
traditionalism and poise. Some 
may even call it pretentious, 

though I’m not sure I agree. 
Regardless, whatever kind of 
person Jamie presents himself 
as through his writing setup is 
instantly deconstructed when 
his finished pages are blown out 
of his grasp by the wind and into 
the dirty, freezing cold pond 
right behind his cottage. 
Jamie’s 
housekeeper, 
the 
Portuguese-speaking 
and 
beautiful Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz, 
“Red 
Nose 
Day 
Actually”), 
immediately strips down to her 
underwear and dives into the 
pond, believing she is saving 
something that might be of 
significant literary value. Jamie 
knows what he’s written is not 
worth getting into that water for, 
and is thus shocked by Aurélia’s 
commitment 
to 
the 
cause. 
Regardless of whatever value 
Jamie’s writing might have, it 
seems to be that trying to save 
it is a futile gesture — I imagine 
the ink-printed words on the 
page would bleed to the point 
of unreadability. But Aurélia 
doesn’t have time to think of 
these logistics: She jumps right 
in, and Jamie is clearly moved by 
her behavior, by how much she 
believes in him. He follows her 
into the water. 
Jamie and Aurélia engage 
in both a literal and figurative 

stripping of layers, taking off 
their cardigans and plunging 
into uncertain terrain. Their 
individual ways of going about 
this are brilliantly revealing of 
them as people — while Aurélia 
takes off nearly all of her clothing 
and dives into the pond as though 
she’s a professional swimmer, 
Jamie leaves on everything but 
his sweater and clumsily falls 
into the pond instead of jumping. 
She is confident and determined, 
he is insecure and apprehensive, 
and they’re just now learning this 
about each other. Having come 
to understand the pointlessness 
of trying to save the paper, they 
laugh, and the rest of their love 
story is history.
The 
paper 
itself 
means 
nothing, of course. What matters 
is what the paper represents, 
what the thing printed on its 
surface signifies. In the case of 
“Love Actually,” what’s printed 
on Jamie’s pages probably isn’t 
even what matters — after all, 
he even says, “It’s not worth it, 
it isn’t bloody Shakespeare.” 
What does matter about this 
paper is that its plunge into the 
pond’s murky waters is what 
drags Jamie and Aurélia into the 
pond, allowing their romance to 
advance to new and uncharted 
territories.

A dive into ‘Love Actually’

ELISE GODFRYD
Daily Arts Writer

B-SIDE: FILM NOTEBOOK

FLICKR

B-SIDE: STYLE NOTEBOOK

I used to despise journaling. 
Every 
summer 
throughout 
middle 
school, 
my 
parents 
required my sister and I to keep 
a journal, hoping to cultivate 
our writing skills and keep 
us sharp for the upcoming 
school year. No matter how 
many 
aesthetically-pleasing 
incentives presented to us — 
worn, leather-bound covered 
journals or neon jelly roll pens 
— I protested. Out of teenage 
spite, I sloppily composed my 
entries, triple and quadruple 
spacing my sentences to meet 
the minimum page requirement 
and scribbling in near-illegible 
scrawl. My vocabulary was 
bland and disjointed, detailing 
the 
most 
mundane 
daily 
activities I could conjure up, 
like “woke up at 8:32 a.m.” 
or “brushed my teeth for 46 
seconds.” 
Melodramatic 
and 
petty? Yes and yes. 
Once I reached high school, 
my 
parents 
loosened 
their 
summer requirements, and I 
gleefully vowed that I would 
never journal again.
Then something changed. It 
was the fall of my senior year 
and I was bumbling through the 

Common App and frantically 
completing last-minute college 
visits. Nestled on the plane en 
route to Washington University 
in St. Louis for an interview, my 
nerves were buzzing. Whether 
it was an introversion-induced 
terror or a need to proactively 
process my anxieties, I felt an 
unfamiliar impulse to write. As 
if by fate, I’d packed a “college 
journal” at my mother’s request 
to take notes and look engaged 
during 
the 
informational 
session 
and 
campus 
tour. 
Hesitantly, I pulled a pale 
blue book from my backpack, 
pinching it like an alien object. 
I awkwardly brushed the pages 
and aimed to focus my thoughts. 
Pen in hand, I began to write.
At 
first 
my 
words 
were 
concentrated, restricted even, 
limited to the topics of college 
and leaving the bubble of home. 
Then, 
suddenly, 
a 
barrier 
broke and everything poured 
out. Memories of insecurities, 
friendships lost and heartbreaks 
of the past flooded to the 
surface, spilling out of me like 
water. My hands failed to keep 
up with my thoughts, jerking 
from line to line as though 
possessed. Before I knew it, 
page after page was covered 
in black ink and the plane was 
close to landing. Emerging from 

my trance, I re-entered reality, 
hands shaking slightly and eyes 
wide and alert. I felt electric 
and 
refreshed, 
as 
though 
processing the words from my 
mind to the blank sheets had 
lifted a physical burden from 
my body. I felt weightless. 
It would be a lie to claim 
that my plane ride flirtation 
with journaling turned into a 
full-blown love affair. I did not 
become a daily journaler, nor 
did I find inner peace every 
time jotted down an entry, but 
I did discover the value in self 
reflection. Growing up in a 
technology-saturated 
world, 
I’ve had the privilege of access 
to endless piles of information 
at the touch of a screen. But just 
as this information overload is a 
blessing, it is also a curse. In the 
maze of posts and likes, it is easy 
to get lost in the lives of others 
and 
inadvertently 
position 
ourselves on the backburner. 
More 
than 
anything, 
journaling has morphed into an 
outlet, a crutch and a therapeutic 
tool for reconnection. Though 
it kills the thirteen-year-old 
drama queen inside me to admit 
it, my parents were right all 
along. Their simple, sincere 
message to me all those years 
ago is one that I’ve finally 
decided to heed. Just write.

On comfort and journaling

SAMANTHA NELSON
Daily Arts Writer

B-SIDE: COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

They are joissance 
distilled in an 
image, in a single 
expresion that is at 
once complicated 
and crystal 
clear, then cast 
throughout like 
speckled debris.

Print media has been “dying” for a long time, 
but in that death, or at least relegation to niche 
markets, there is a great deal of personal value 
placed on what we choose to fill our shelves 
with.

More than anything, journaling has morphed 
into an outlet, a crutch and a therapeutic tool for 
reconnection.

4B —Thursday, October 3, 2019
b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

