“Desire and reverence are very closely linked in my mind. There’s also fear and desire. The tension between fear and awe and the sublime – that something that is beautiful can be both frightening and attracting – links to a certain idea of ancient experience.”
Between feathered layers of opaque and translucent brushstrokes, Noli me Tangere from 2018 sees Julien Nguyen skillfully recast historical styles of Renaissance underpainting to render the youthful body of a boy, who simultaneously defines and disintegrates into his umber environment. Like haze, the earthbound space appears to bend around his sinuous body as he rests in languid repose, casting him as an untouchable object of desire and serene sanctitude. Nguyen’s painterly suggestion of his sitter’s divinity is most reflected in the ecclesiastical title of the present work, Noli me tangere, Caesarus Sum (“Touch me not, for Caesar’s I am”), also an ancient Latin phrase mythically inscribed upon the collars of Caesar’s white stags to proclaim the godly perpetuity of the ancient Roman Emperor’s protection. Since Nguyen’s seminal inclusion in the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the young Los Angeles-based painter has distinguished himself with his contemporary and queer renditions of Biblical and Renaissance aesthetic legacies; in recent years, he has debuted in critically acclaimed solo exhibitions at the Swiss Institute in New York and Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, in both of which the present work prominently exhibited. Clad in an azure blue shirt before a crepuscular, lichen green fog, the protagonist of Noli me Tangere elusively tilts his head heavenward, embodying in his majestic pose Nguyen’s aesthetic answer to painting’s timeless quest for divine beauty.
Within the fantastical dimensions and intimate niches of his painterly tableau, Julien Nguyen revisits foundational narratives of Western history and mythology, delicately negotiating omnipresent themes of power, desire, and spirituality in the subjectivity of his contemporary male muses. The distinctively anachronistic universes of Nguyen’s celebrated portraiture unravel his rich constellations of both historical and stylistic inspirations, which connect modern science fiction to Early Renaissance paintings of the fifteenth century to Japanese manga. Made implicit in the present work, Nguyen’s artistic ethos finds deep resonance in the vernacular of Renaissance humanism, particularly as he elicits its latent erotic nuances. According to curator Steven Matijcio, “The relatively common Renaissance custom of the painter incorporating his young assistants (often lovers), as characters within these scenes heightens the sexual charge of the composition… Centuries later, the eros of Nguyen’s paintings in this ongoing tradition smolder quietly, but feverishly as he ‘queers’ his mythical evocations with the sinuous bodies and stoic visages of friends and lovers.” (Steven Matijcio, Exh. Brochure, Cincinnati, Contemporary Arts Center, Julien Nguyen: Returns, 2019 (online))
The Latin title of Noli me Tangere, Caesaris Sum further testifies to Nguyen’s contemporary engagement with the Classical legacy: according to legend, these words were found inscribed on the collars of white deer 300 years after the death of the Caesar. Announcing the holiness of the animals’ connection to the protective Roman emperor, this ancient phrase echoes here to suggest the communion between the boy and Nguyen, or sitter and artist. Noli me Tangere is also commonly interpreted as Jesus’s verbal indication to Mary Magdalene that the bond between human beings and his person must no longer be physical upon his resurrection, but instead one of faith from heart to heart; from Late Antiquity to today, artists ranging from Fra Angelico to Picasso have represented the original Biblical saying as well. Innovating the iconographic tradition of his art historical forebears with the present work, Nguyen recreates the mysticism of Biblical spirituality and Augustan fable with his painterly treatment of his male sitter, rendered here to give the impression that he transcends earthly matter even as he remains surrounded by it.
“In works like Noli me tangere, Caesaris Sum (2018), Nguyen refashions the figure as a liminal, transgressive mutation…Stretching the body beyond the normative ideals of Classical proportion, he pushes the human frame into an amorphous frontier where attendant codes are rendered askew.”
Noli me Tangere, Caesaris Sum sees Nguyen’s virtuosic interpretation of his aesthetic influences in its rich terrestrial landscape, the tonal flux of which recalls the early technique of imprimatura underpainting. Murky sienna hues faintly illuminate here between ethereal layers of paint, recalling the treasured Renaissance paintings of Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pontormo which masterfully render depth to the flesh. In the crisp precision of his sitter’s lithe posture and peaceful demeanor, Nguyen additionally invokes the tender intimacy of Elizabeth Peyton’s portraits, which similarly depict close friends, as well as the sensuous corporeality of Egon Schiele’s paintings, where elongated figures gesture at the carnality of their inner psychological states. Speaking on the present work, Steven Matijcio continues, “In works like Noli me tangere, Caesaris Sum (2018), Nguyen refashions the figure as a liminal, transgressive mutation…Stretching the body beyond the normative ideals of Classical proportion, he pushes the human frame into an amorphous frontier where attendant codes are rendered askew.” (Ibid.)
Entwining the personal and divine in an opulent worship of the body, Nguyen’s Noli me Tangere, Caesaris Sum is a consummate example of the primordial humanist motifs that preoccupy one of the most novel voices in contemporary art, who has said himself, “Desire and reverence are very closely linked in my mind. There’s also fear and desire. The tension between fear and awe and the sublime – that something that is beautiful can be both frightening and attracting – links to a certain idea of ancient experience.” (The artist quoted in an interview with Gianna Samms, TheGuide.Art, 27 June 2021 (online)). Nguyen’s willful return to the unresolved aesthetic and philosophical matters of a Classical human era profoundly renegotiates universal virtues of beauty and divinity, especially within the increasingly secular context of today’s metropolitan society. As its every intricate detail here imbues the young sitter with an aura of sublimity and mysticism, Noli me Tangere, Caesaris Sum testifies to the apotheosis of Nguyen’s transcendental artistic pursuit: “like good theology, his works make the familiar strange again.” (Emily Chun, “Julien Nguyen: Pictures of the Floating World,” The Brooklyn Rail, July/August 2021 (online))
