Mai+Naoto Yamashita+Kobayashi / 山下＋小林 麻衣+直人

Mai Yamashita (b. 1976, Chiba, Japan) and Naoto Kobayashi (b.1974, Chiba, Japan) met at high school and began working together officially in 2001. After completing their studies at Tokyo University of the Arts, the duo moved to Germany in 2004, where they participated in artists-in-residences including Künstlerhaus Bethanien (Germany, 2010) and International Studio & Curatorial Program (U.S., 2011). After returning to Japan in 2012, they have been based in Chiba.

Using a wide range of media including video, performance, painting, sculpture, and public art, Yamashita+Kobayashi continue to seek building up fresh and alternative relationships between humans and non-human beings – from familiar plants and animals to larger entities such as oceans, mountains, and natural phenomena. Their extraordinary effort with labor and time is sometimes fraught with misunderstandings and unexpected results, but it brings about miraculous moments. Their strong, philosophical and natural scientific interests are reflected, through their bodies, in their works as "Uncertainty of the world”.

They exhibited internationally, including solo shows at Kunstverein Göttingen (DE, 2011); Oyama City Kurumaya Museum of Art (Tochigi, JP, 2015); Kurobe City Art Museum (Toyama, JP, 2021); Chiba Prefectural Museum of Art (Chiba, JP, 2023); Art Tower Mito (Ibaraki, JP, 2024), as well as group exhibitions at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki, FIN, 2006); Moca Taipei (Taipei, TW, 2011); Centre Pompidou Málaga (Málaga, ES, 2018); Art Gallery NSW (Sydney, AU, 2020); and triennials such as Aichi Triennale (2010); Yokohama Triennale (2011); Setouchi Triennale (2019); Bangkok Art Biennale (2024).