Famed for their iconic portraits fusing painting and photography that they have been creating for the past 40 years, the duo is unveiling their most introspective and critical work to date. For the exhibition, they use their astute observations of society to concoct bittersweet pieces that reflect the contradictions of our era.

The exhibition opens with a self-portrait created in the studio during the lockdown: Bonjour Pierre et Gilles pays tribute to Gustave Courbet’s painting Bonjour Monsieur Courbet. It shows the couple wandering on a bucolic path, lost among housing estates and residential suburbs. Thugs, scrap metal dealers, homeless people, Yellow Vest protestors? With a knowing look and their trademark benevolence, Pierre et Gilles invite us into their unique universe, an artificial world as wondrous as it is disturbing.

The lay-out of the gallery has been re-imagined, opened up to make it lighter with a bigger surface area that will emphasize further more on the quality of the exhibited work. This step is part of the gallery’s evolution bringing a breath of fresh air to the space’s identity and is a positive sign for the Parisian art scene.

As Daniel Templon puts it himself; “Our space at rue Beaubourg gallery has so much potential, it is located in one of Paris’ most vibrant area and has hosted for the past decades the most renown artists from all around the world. The impact of the Coronavirus crisis on public access to art has made everyone realize the increasingly important role of the gallery. This new step in the history of our space embodies further this idea: to provide our visitors with a free access to high-quality museum-level exhibitions”.