Palai

Bel Ami joins the second edition of Palai, presenting new works by Milano Chow and Julien Monnerie. Organized by Paris-based gallery Balice Hertling, Palai 2023 brings together eleven galleries and thirty-five artists in a group exhibition taking place at the historic Palazzo Tamborini Cezzi in Lecce, Italy.

Link to full list of participating artists and galleries:

https://www.palaiproject.com

MILANO CHOW

Milano Chow (b. 1987, Los Angeles) lives and works in Los Angeles. She received her BA from Barnard College in 2009 and attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2013. She has held solo exhibitions at The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield; Adams and Ollman, Portland; Chapter NY, New York; Galleria Acappella, Naples; and Mary Mary, Glasgow. Recent group exhibitions include Petits Formats, ADZ Gallery, Lisbon (2023); Wonder Women, Jeffrey Deitch, New York and Los Angeles (2022); The Interior, Venus Over Manhattan, New York (2021); Therein / Thereof / Thereto, STANDARD (OSLO), Oslo (2021); Whitney Biennial 2019 at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. She is a 2018 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Her work is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

In her neo-noir scenes, Chow engages the visual languages of architecture and fashion to investigate themes of voyeurism, alienation, isolation, and desire. In her drawings employing graphite, photo transfer, and collage, Chow creates architectural renderings that are subtly uncanny–almost habitable, but not quite. Her ornate building facades are punctuated by cryptic window displays and elusive female figures. Drawing upon a wide range of references, from books on Classical Roman motifs to reality TV, Chow sources the women inhabiting her drawings from fashion magazines and catalogs, often selecting them for their aura of artificiality or theatricality. The women are surreal, seductive, or disturbingly still. Dressed in disparate styles, they are statuesque–simultaneously assertive and aloof–reflecting the facades of the buildings they occupy. Chow’s works enact a voyeuristic surveillance of urban exteriors. Yet, access is not guaranteed; in these nocturnal settings, businesses are closed and figures are partially hidden by protective window frames, screens, and blinds. Here Chow both reifies and challenges the idea of woman-as-mystery. The works reveal how feminine accouterments, like the decorative elements of a building, can function as an entrained symbology, either flattening experience or enriching it. The embellishments draw us in, and at the same time prompt us to question preconceived notions about what’s behind the curtain.

JULIEN MONNERIE

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 Paris peinture Ici et Maintenant, MABA, Nogent-sur-Marne (2023); Homesick, Shivers Only, Paris (2021); Ultra, FRAC Bretagne, Rennes (2021); Paris peinture * Connoisseurs, 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); and From the Xmas Tree of Lucy Bull 2, From the Desk of Lucy Bull, Los Angeles (2020). Monnerie’s work is in the collection of FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris.

Box, coffin, reliquary?

What one first sees, approaching Julien Monnerie’s new wall sculptures, is their highly polished surfaces reflecting oneself, reflecting the surroundings. An ephemeral vision on a blurry shape, turned toward the exterior..

The sculptures open like a mouth. Notice the sound of their clasps.

Their inside crystallizing into a defined shape: the negative space left by an asparagus, or a lemon, a turnip, a pear…

Adapted from ice cream molds – elements for composing ornate desserts – the fine grooves and curves of the inside of the sculptures preserve the past presence of a soft and perishable fruit or vegetable: the cast trace of the fleeting moment where the asparagus, the apple, peaks in its savor. The delicacy now absent, its memory lingers.

They protrude from the wall like an offering in mid-air.

They are held in position by a mechanism adapted from the Bialetti stovetop espresso maker. The arm in varying sizes to fit the various scales of the fruits and vegetables. Monnerie’s jeweller-like attention to the mechanics of what holds something in place, as in his long-standing study of cufflinks.

Between functions, unrestricted to a single purpose, open or closed, like a moving body, adapting to situations and poses manifold: a seasonal selection, in motion, rather than fixed.