Guendalina Cerruti

People Watching

In 2019, I took my first trip to Guendaland. Actually, it was a group show in the French countryside where I first encountered the work of Guendalina Cerruti… There, she presented four small (snow) globe works – two contained dried flora, one had a diamond (CZ?) ring in a solid substance, as if trapped in a rock, and another, a black and white photograph of Judy Garland. As if the globes needed warming, each wore socks or jumper cuffs around their bases. burrrrrr One sported a green and white gingham ribbon tied in a bow. At once cute, eerie, seductive, and chilling, I’ve been wanting to get back to Guendaland ever since.  

In Guen’s world, paintings have hairdos. Dresser drawers are empty, acting instead as plinths for mini collections with messages on their backsides. There are sports cars, greeting cards, some stars, and lots of bows; and there is glitter. There are lots of tops (shirt-garments) and recently, there are dogs. The work’s materiality and production has an elegant ease – the materials are modest, some considerations seem flip, while others are clearly rigid. This dynamic, along with the works’ initial whimsy, affords a generous play rarely encountered – a practice taken so seriously it is seriously funny and dead serious.

In People Watching, Cerruti presents new work, all tops, in three categories: North Face puffers, vintage Disney, and sequin-tees. Three grid works present groupings of individually sewn paintings which gently morph into gatherings of those who might wear them: a Disney convention or children’s party, a chilly night where puffers protect from the elements, while projecting bourgeois status, a gals’ night out to a guided wine and painting soirée. Three smaller works, each coiffed, could be the leaders of each pack, or loners outside of the groups. In Cerruti’s character studies, difference is almost absent, taste and individuality defined only by subtleties like “am I a cat or a cosmo girl? What if I’m both?” But for Guendalina, this generic is celebrated and elevated, as she shows intimacy and tenderness through careful treatment of painting and sewing. Alas, the gallery again becomes a meeting place – social gathering(s) encouraged – sculptor first, even Cerruti’s paintings present bodies in space.

Oh, and did I mention… there will be dogs ;)

 Guendalina Cerruti (b. 1992, Milan, Italy) is an Aries Sun, Scorpio Moon, and Aquarius Rising. People Watching is her first solo exhibition in the United States. She lives and works in London.