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

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.