Buenos Aires - Juan Tessi’s work pulls no punches – especially his series of small paintings (roughly 8"X11") of boys behaving badly. Boys on the cusp of manhood – in various stages of undress – tie up, strangle, and have sex with other boys (and sometimes girls). When only one figure appears in the painting, it’s clear from the engaged yet absent expression that something is being done to him, or he’s watching something being done to someone else. All his figures are completely engrossed in the act – be it sexual or violent or both. And Tessi captures that un-posed absence of self-consciousness of someone in the exact moment of fulfilling desire.
Like Juan Videla’s paintings, Tessi’s dialogues with photography and, moreover, video. But Tessi’s images come from pornography – a form that commands viewing – and by co-opting this genre, he crystallizes painting’s punch. One way we safely consume and know our world – one way we safely fulfill our desires – is through looking at art. And the analogy to the consumption of pornography is apt. Tessi mediates the pornographic/photographic image through paint thereby making the subject of his work not the pornography’s sex or violence, but rather the desire itself. We are no longer selflessly engrossed: through his paintings we end up looking at ourselves looking.
Nathan Tichenor
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