Influenced by underground comix, 1990s anime, and shōjo manga, Julien Ceccaldi’s fantastic compositions capture the discomfort, melodrama, and romance of contemporary social life. City streets, skyrise apartments, steam rooms, cocktail lounges, and sidewalk cafés provide the settings for many of the stories that unfold across his drawings, paintings, and self-published comics, lending his work the contours of realism.
For this commission, Ceccaldi was inspired by street scenes in modernist paintings from MoMA’s collection. His playfully skewed, life-size geometries reference United Productions of America (UPA), a mid-20th-century animation studio and Disney rival. UPA depicted modern architectures in their televised series, commercials, and theatrical shorts to evoke the progress and possibilities of life after World War II.
In this window into the rapid hustle of our present day, Ceccaldi’s recurring characters—the cosmopolitan thirty-somethings Hay’dée, Simon, and Thomas—engage in flirtatious conversation and devious observation. In the midst of it all, the pensive Francis indulges in a moment of solitary pleasure.
Organized by Kari Rittenbach, Assistant Curator, MoMA PS1.
