Since the mid-1970s when these two handsome men met, fell in love and began making art together, they've produced a consistently sensuous body of work that's an unabashed mix of commercial and high art, glamour, poetry and homoeroticism. In their work, the latter often directly refers to the sexiness of mythic and religious iconography, like an artful prayer card with a colorful illustration of a loin-clothed Jesus writhing languorously on the cross. They're also quite aware of the frisson of pleasure that comes from the sight of celebrity in a provocative pose; they count Catherine Deneuve, Iggy Pop, Nina Hagen, Yves Saint-Laurent and porn legend Jeff Stryker among their subjects.

Their pictures are confections awash in camp-infused references to religion, sex and fame that instantly strike a chord in the popular imagination, on an international scale. The images, which employ time-honored photo-retouching techniques, are also easily reproducible. They've been more widely seen in books, posters and postcards than in their original form -- a situation of which Pierre et Gilles heartily approve. But popular appeal (especially when it comes with overt sentimentality and heavy gay overtones) sometimes deflects from serious critical assessment, particularly in the United States. The artists' work happily exists in an interesting in-between zone that traverses high art and low culture, but this hasn't left them longing for notice.

Now in their 40s, these guys have become international celebrities in their own right -- as an enduring couple trafficking in magnetic, highly theatrical images of hunky men and female superstars, often adorned with glistening tears, reflective PVC bondage wear or martyrlike trickles of blood. How could they not generate a mythic duo persona?

Pierre et Gilles are currently the subject of a traveling retrospective exhibition (organized by New York's New Museum), which just opened at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and will be on view through May 6. They were in town to oversee the installation of 56 of their ornately framed pictures and to attend the launch festivities for their new Swatch watch emblazoned with their photo of a mermaid and a sailor (which comes packaged in a rubbery transparent snow dome filled with blue liquid and glitter). And they made some time to talk about their work.

Pierre et Gilles in person are quite different from their pictures, which gush with rich narratives and abound in acres of gym-toned man flesh (and in which they sometimes appear). When I meet the pair at their hotel they seem sweet, shy and modest, even as they sport the severe gay fashion appropriation of pierced and tattooed bikers.

Pierre is short and dark, with close-cropped hair and smoldering eyes, a single tear tattooed to the corner of one of them. Gilles is taller, with a rounder face, even shorter hair and a single labret piercing just above his chin. They're both dressed in Levi's fashion-forward Red line, with a glimpse of elaborate decorative tattoos poking out from the sleeves of their denim jackets.

Along with a translator, we chat in a suite that, appropriately enough, has vibrant leopard print carpeting. (Things are cut a bit short when Pierre reaches for a cigarette, requiring relocation to a smoking floor, and a room with zebra-striped carpet.)

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