Arthur Lemonier, SICK SHIFTS

Ketabi Bourdet a la joie de présenter Sick Shifts, la deuxième exposition personnelle d’Arthur Lemonier à la galerie.

Avec Sick Shifts, Arthur Lemonier poursuit sa recherche sur le corps, ses métamorphoses et les multiples projections — souvent violentes — qui s’exercent sur lui et les identités marginalisées. Ancrée dans les questions de transidentité, d’intersexuation, d’androgynie et de fluidité, l’exposition interroge la manière dont nos sociétés prescrivent encore ce que devrait être un corps : sa forme, son genre, son usage, sa visibilité. Lemonier oppose à ces normes une vision radicalement libre, où chacun peut décider pour soi-même de la façon d’habiter, de jouer ou de transcender son enveloppe charnelle.

Dans une nouvelle série, le corps apparaît comme une relique sacrée, un totem à préserver plutôt qu’un territoire à corriger- un totem qui s’auto-façonne plutôt qu’un territoire menaçant. L’artiste se concentre ainsi sur le tronc, volontairement dépourvu de visage — geste de protection autant que d’universalité, référençant ainsi les identités utilisées comme objet, trop souvent anonymisées au détriment de leur dignité. À l’inverse, certaines peintures montrent des silhouettes anonymes- fantomatiques, proches des avatars numériques : visages fantômes-délavés, sourds et accusateurs, devenus les juges imaginaires des corps d’autrui.

Les références d’Arthur Lemonier traversent l’histoire, oscillant entre récits héroïques et destins tragiques. De Lili Elbe, première femme trans opérée dans les années 1930, au film Girl ; des fictions dérangeantes comme La piel que habito au parcours bouleversant d’Herculine Barbin, déclarée homme à son insu par la médecine au XIXe siècle : toutes ces histoires révèlent un même fil rouge. Celui des mutilations symboliques, physiques

et psychiques imposées aux corps marginalisés — intersexes, trans, queer — longtemps observés, classés, corrigés, fantasmés, mais rarement écoutés.

La première acception du titre Sick Shifts renvoie à ces violences : interventions médicales forcées, pathologisation des identités, thérapies de conversion, agressions, discriminations systémiques. NOT SICK, répète Lemonier : ce ne sont pas les identités qui sont malades, mais les mécanismes et institutions qui prétendent les définir.

La seconde lecture est résolument jubilatoire : « it’s sick » — en anglais c’est puissant, c’est beau, c’est affirmé. L’artiste célèbre celles et ceux qui incarnent le changement, l’audace, la fluidité. Bowie, Gaga, Leigh Bowery ou Pete Burns ont nourri son imaginaire, faisant du corps un terrain de jeu, un masque en mouvement, un espace d’expérimentation joyeuse ou mélancolique.

L’exposition est également traversée par le deuil et la mémoire : rendre hommage à celles et ceux qui ont ouvert des brèches, souvent au prix de leur vie, pour que d’autres puissent simplement être. Mais Sick Shifts porte surtout un désir : sortir des binarités épuisées, imaginer un espace où le regard social devient aveugle- où le regard social dépasse le microscope, penser l’existence hors genre, hors sexe, ailleurs — un territoire que l’artiste nomme extersexe, exsex.

Né en 1998, Arthur Lemonier vit et travaille à Paris. Sick Shifts est sa deuxième exposition à la galerie et suit de près son exposition au Centre d’Art Spazio Favilla à Cervia (Italie).

Ketabi Bourdet is delighted to present Sick Shifts, Arthur Lemonier’s second solo exhibition at the gallery.

With Sick Shifts, Arthur Lemonier pursues his xploration of the body, its metamorphoses, and the many — often violent — projections imposed upon it and upon marginalized identities. Rooted in questions of trans identity, intersexuality, androgyny, and fluidity, the exhibition examines the ways in which our societies continue to prescribe what a body should be: its shape, its gender, its function, its visibility. Against these norms, Lemonier proposes a radically liberated vision, where each person may decide for themselves how to inhabit, play with, or transcend their physical envelope.

In a new series, the body appears as a sacred relic, a totem to be preserved rather than a territory to be corrected — a self-shaping totem instead of a threatening terrain. The artist focuses on the torso, deliberately deprived of a face — a gesture of protection as much as one of universality, referencing identities treated as objects, too often anonymised to the detriment of their dignity. Conversely, some paintings depict anonymous, ghostly silhouettes, reminiscent of digital avatars: washed-out, spectral faces, both deaf and accusatory, becoming the imaginary judges of other people’s bodies.

Arthur Lemonier’s references cut across history, oscillating between heroic narratives and tragic destinies. From Lili Elbe, the first trans woman to undergo surgery in the 1930s, to the film Girl; from disturbing fictions such as La Piel que habito in to the wrenching life of Herculine Barbin, declared male without her consent by 19th-century medical authorities: all these stories reveal the same underlying thread. A thread of symbolic, physical, and psychological mutilations imposed on marginalized bodies — intersex, trans, queer — long observed, classified, corrected, fantasised, but rarely heard.

The first meaning of the title Sick Shifts refers to these violences: forced medical interventions, the pathologisation of identities, conversion therapies, assaults, systemic discrimination. NOT SICK, repeats Lemonier: it is not the identities that are ill, but the mechanisms and institutions that claim the power to define them.

The second reading is defiantly jubilant: “it’s sick” — meaning powerful, beautiful, unapologetic. The artist celebrates those who embody change, boldness, and fluidity. Bowie, Gaga, Leigh Bowery, and Pete Burns have nourished his imagination, turning the body

into a playground, a shifting mask, a site of joyful or melancholic experimentation.

The exhibition is also threaded with grief and remembrance: honouring those who opened breaches — often at the cost of their lives — so that others might simply exist. But Sick Shifts ultimately carries a desire: to move beyond exhausted binaries, to imagine a space where the social gaze goes blind — or rather surpasses the microscope — to envision existence beyond gender, beyond sex, elsewhere — a territory the artist calls extersex, exsex.

Born in 1998, Arthur Lemonier lives and works in Paris. Sick Shifts is his second exhibition at the gallery and closely follows his first institutional solo show, Vertiges, at the Spazio Favilla Art Centre in Cervia (Italy).

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Arthur Lemonier, SICK SHIFTS : KETABI BOURDET - 22, PASSAGE DAUPHINE 75006 PARIS

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