Liste Art Fair Basel

“I never wish to be easily defined. I’d rather float over other people’s minds as something strictly fluid and non-perceivable; more like a transparent, paradoxically iridescent creature rather than an actual person.” – Franz Kafka, from his diaries. 

“Listen, every object’s in flux. The Earth, time, concepts, love, life, faith, justice, evil–they’re all fluid and in transition. They don’t stay in one form or in one place forever. The whole universe is like some big FedEx box.” – Haruki Murakami, from Kafka on the Shore.

In Kafka on the Shore a teenage boy must escape a foreboding prophecy to achieve a fresh start. To defeat fate, he changes course using unexpected encounters with animals and magic objects. For example, overturning a white, round ‘entrance stone’ about the size of a vinyl record opens up a portal. The novel explores the permeable boundary between a floating world and an anchored reality. 

In this presentation for Liste Art Fair Basel, artists Minami Kobayashi (b.1989, Japan) and Julien Monnerie (b. 1987, France) address how perceptions of the past transform our experience and awareness of the present moment.

In all of his work Julien Monnerie alters everyday objects such as cuff links and keys, executed with exceptional craftsmanship to tap into an imaginative experience of history, yet their presence and gravity hold us in current time and space. His enigmatic pewter and silver wall-mounted sculptures are like surreal door knobs to another realm. Made from vintage ice cream molds for elaborate desserts of the 1950s, the highly polished shapes resemble fruit and vegetable forms but they are also curious containers; they suggest a magical purpose at the same time as they evoke their antiquated function.

In her paintings in oil on linen, Minami Kobayashi creates scenes based on her associations with real places from memory–a temple in Japan, art class in college, a patch of the California coast–that are also dreamlike constructions. She invokes the color palette of Post-Impressionist painting and the compositions of ukiyo-e Japanese prints, to name a few references, using many thin layers of paint, like revisiting a memory. She builds cohesive worlds, neatly framed as if viewed through a large picture window, suggesting fragments of a fleeting narrative. Human figures and animals vividly bask in a luminous atmosphere that seems to be in flux, captured by yet barely contained by the canvas.

Together these artists conjure the feeling that even a daydream can help us to decipher an ever-shifting reality.

Minami Kobayashi (b. 1989 Nagoya, Japan) lives and works in London. She studied at the Tokyo University of the Arts and School of the Art Institute, Chicago. Selected solo and two person presentations include Frestonian Gallery, London (2024); Et Al. Gallery, San Francisco (2023); Frestonian Gallery, London (2023); Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago (2022); Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago (2019); Kate’s Little Angel, Los Angeles (2019); Baby Blue Gallery, Chicago (2017); and TANNE Gallery, Tokyo (2015). Recent group shows include We Almost Forgot, Long Story Short, New York (2024); Panta Rhei, Alice Amati, London (2024); Loose Threads, Bombon Project Gallery, Barcelona (2024); Friends and Lovers, Shulamit Nazarian Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Trio show, Dinner Party Gallery, London (2022); Lovely, OIL Gallery by Bijyutsu Techo, Tokyo (2022); Beyond Each Other, Florence Trust, London (2021); Tender the Bone, Goldfinch Gallery, Chicago (2021); Glimpse, lvl3 Gallery, Chicago (2021); CAVE CANEM, Eve Leibe Gallery, London (2021); New-laid eggs vol.3,GALLERY MoMo Ryogoku, Tokyo (2020); Birds shun such trees, Et al. Gallery, San Francisco (2020); A Peripheral Reverie, Penske Project, Montecito (2020); Anecdote, Stems Gallery, Brussels (2020); and Place out of Time, Setouchi Triennial 2019, Kagawa (2024).

Julien Monnerie (b. 1987 Rennes, France) lives and works in Paris. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, the École des Beaux-Arts de Rennes and the Glasgow School of Art. Recent solo exhibitions include Primeur, Studiolo, Paris (2023); AUTO, with Clémentine Adou, DOC, Paris (2021); Commodity Fetishism, Furiosa (2019); Dead Slow, with Diane Severin Nguyen, Shivers Only at Exo Exo, Paris (2019); and Talking Alone, Bel Ami, Los Angeles (2019). Recent group exhibitions include Notes towards a shell, Tara Downs, New York (2024); Sowing the Seed of Care, Galleria Fuoricampo, Siena, (2024);  La chambre à échos, La Ferme Du Buisson, Noisiel, (2024); Paris peinture Ici et Maintenant, MABA, Nogent-sur-Marne (2023); Homesick, Shivers Only, Paris (2021); Ultra, FRAC Bretagne, Rennes (2021); Paris peinture, Jean Brolly, Paris, (2020); Your Friends and Neighbors, High Art, Paris, (2020); The Sentimental Organization of the World, Crèvecœur, Paris, (2020); Cool Invitations 7, XYZ Collective, Tokyo (2020); From the Xmas Tree of Lucy Bull 2, From the Desk of Lucy Bull, Los Angeles (2020); Vivace, Balcony, Lisbon (2019); Foncteur d’oubli, Le Plateau FRAC Île-de-France, Paris (2019) and Conversation Piece, Furiosa, Monaco (2019). Monnerie’s work is in the collection of FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris.