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{"id":270056,"date":"2025-08-27T16:10:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T21:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esse.ca\/compte-rendu\/julien-ceccaldi-adult-theater\/"},"modified":"2025-09-02T10:31:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-02T15:31:51","slug":"julien-ceccaldi-adult-theater","status":"publish","type":"compte-rendu","link":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/reviews\/julien-ceccaldi-adult-theater\/","title":{"rendered":"Julien Ceccaldi
Adult Theater<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Julien Ceccaldi\u2019s latest show is like browsing a twisted DeviantArt profile. On display in his solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 were vignettes drawn from his own original illustrated universe. His comics, paintings, and films appropriate the stylistic conventions of sh\u014djo<\/em>, a genre of Japanese media aimed at adolescent girls. Think Sailor Moon<\/em> here\u2014although ardent fans may notice that his slim-waisted, tall, and swishy figures more closely resemble the cast of Chiho Saito\u2019s Revolutionary Girl Utena<\/em> (1997). As an immense vitrine full of sketches and working documents demonstrated, characters are the focus of Ceccaldi\u2019s practice and the actors in his Adult Theater<\/em>.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The denizens of this world tend toward the surreal. A group of girlfriends share chins exaggerated to the point of looking like beaks; a hulking male body builder is revealed to be dating an anthropomorphic thumb. Planted at the centre of these bizarre personages is Francis, a meek yet determined man who serves as the protagonist of many of Ceccaldi\u2019s tales. Francis is, to put it frankly, deeply uncool. With his appearance\u2014sporting long hair despite his balding pate\u2014Francis challenges conventions around male (and queer male) beauty. Surrounding him with such hyperbolically gendered figures\u2014who tilt, interestingly, toward the masculine\u2014Ceccaldi foregrounds the inadequacies of his protagonist in the face of social norms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\"Julien
Julien Ceccaldi<\/strong>
Excerpt from the comic Last Call<\/em>, 2024.
Photo: courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Francis\u2019s desires are an engine for the majority of these works. In the luridly funny animated film Tasteful <\/em>(2025), he seeks love on a new gay cruising app, yet at all turns he confronts compromising or degrading situations. Nonetheless, he persists. At one point he cries out, \u201cGiving myself to random guys… It makes me feel alive!!\u201d His restless pursuit is the subject of a large painting titled Pompeii Bathhouse<\/em> (2017), in which he stalks a muscular man who does not appear to take any notice of him. This theme is inverted, somewhat perversely, in a new mural-sized painting that was commissioned for this show. In A Collection of Little Memories<\/em> (2025), an enormous and psychedelically rendered Francis accepts the tributes of a group of paramours. These men appear to walk on the sculptural steel staircase located at the edge of the room. Ceccaldi tends to use paintings to delve into rather surreal territory; in their decontextualized strangeness, they function something like sketchbook doodles that throw characters into unusual situations or experiment with their appearance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Julien
Julien Ceccaldi<\/strong>
Pompeii Bathhouse<\/em>, 2017, installation view,
MoMA PS1, New York, 2025.
Photo: Steven Paneccasio, courtesy MoMA PS1, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
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\"Julien
Julien Ceccaldi<\/strong>
A Collection of Little Memories<\/em>, installation view,
MoMA PS1, New York, 2025.
Photo: Steven Paneccasio, courtesy MoMA PS1, New York<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Convention, often unstated yet forcefully felt, is the thematic infrastructure undergirding these works. In his adaptation of the motifs and style of sh\u014djo<\/em>, Ceccaldi proves to be a droll parodist, yet he does not exactly skewer the genre. If anything, he hardens the conventions of sh\u014djo<\/em>, reasserting its narrative and figural tropes. His characters all seem committed to the bit. For all of their unconventionality, the members of this cast dutifully play their parts, hewing to only the most extreme affects and declaring their unseemly yet passionate felt feelings out loud\u2014to themselves, to others, to nobody in particular. In this way, Ceccaldi dramatizes the distance between the ideal and reality. He exploits the incongruity between his unseemly characters and the glittering genre they move through\u2014an allegory, perhaps, for the seemingly immovable conventions that structure our own ordinary dramas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MoMA PS1,<\/strong> New York
March 27\u2013\u200aAugust 25, 2025<\/br>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":270054,"template":"","categories":[884],"numeros":[7549],"disciplines":[],"statuts":[],"checklist":[],"auteurs":[923],"artistes":[7573],"thematiques":[],"type_compte-rendu":[],"class_list":["post-270056","compte-rendu","type-compte-rendu","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","numeros-115-decay","auteurs-connor-spencer-en","artistes-julien-ceccaldi-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu\/270056","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/compte-rendu"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/compte-rendu"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/270054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270056"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"numeros","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/numeros?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"disciplines","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/disciplines?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"statuts","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/statuts?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"checklist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/checklist?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"auteurs","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/auteurs?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"artistes","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artistes?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"thematiques","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thematiques?post=270056"},{"taxonomy":"type_compte-rendu","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.esse.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/type_compte-rendu?post=270056"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}