Aurélien Potier & Neja Zorzut
Proximity
25/03 — 16/05/2026
In the exhibition, the works of Neja Zorzut and Aurélien Potier create an affective environment, in which conflict does not appear as an eruption, but rather persists as a condition of constant tension between opposing forces, choreographies of control, and signs that function as omens, organising attention towards potential outcomes.
Zorzut’s installation Stubble Field spreads across the gallery floor, where soft leather foam elements are arranged into a landscape of organic configurations that recall musculature or bound bodies. Softness here functions not as comfort but as constraint, an absorbing surface that holds force in suspension. Embedded plexiglass objects act as markers of potential action, shifting between lingering and striking, and destabilising the distinction between observation and attack, anticipation and execution. The work understands violence not as accidental, but as something that operates through controlled proximity and delayed action, so that the present becomes charged with signs that influence how the future is interpreted. In Zorzut’s practice, violence persists not only through destruction but also through repetition, anticipation, and the disciplined organization of space and bodies.
Embedded in Zorzut’s installation, a choreography of emotional and bodily control held in a state of anticipation correlates with the pervasive affective and physical tension in Potier’s works, articulated primarily through the contradictory materials of steel, wax, cables, and organic matter. As his sculptures pierce and protrude from the walls or hang suspended from the ceiling, the exhibition unfolds as an emotionally charged environment in which sharp spikes and exposed wires articulate anger and violence, revealing dynamics of extraction and domination. At the same time, eroded steel surfaces and the presence of red beeswax, lending the works a bodily and porous register, imbue them with a sense of fragility and potential disintegration. Together, these elements hold a fundamental paradox that lies at the core of Potier’s practice.
Proximity can be understood here as force held in suspension, charged with the risk of transgression. In Zorzut’s work, it is neither intimate nor safe, but becomes a danger activated through touch. In Potier’s practice, touch still carries the possibility of repair — wax, which can be seen as mending the open wounds, holds out a tentative hope for the healing of relations.
Aurélien Potier creates emotionally charged environments, in which materials become carriers of physical and affective tension. His practice gives form to a way of inhabiting zones of fracture, where the friction of opposing forces generates an opening at the very core of desire. He lives and works in Marseille. His work has been presented at MO.CO. (Montpellier), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Triangle – Astérides (Marseille), CAPC (Bordeaux), CCA (Glasgow), Bibliotheca Hertziana (Roma), la Casa Encendida (Madrid), Gianni Manhattan (Vienna), Air de Paris (Romainville), Nicoletti (London), Art Basel Paris, Frieze London. In 2018 he created the editorial platform « i apologize », publishing editions in a slow-paced rythm. Since 2022, he co-organises « BRUTAL », a series of intimate nights dedicated to poetry in Marseille.
Neja Zorzut graduated in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, where she completed her MA in 2020. Her work explores hyperobject entities by focusing on the porous connection between the body and its environment. She questions how landscapes and atmospheres influence bodily existence and their potential to transform shared spaces into tools of manipulation or weaponization. She has presented her work in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Equrna Gallery, and Nova Pošta in Ljubljana, among others. She has shown her work at the 10th Triennial of Contemporary Art U3, the 34th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts, the 36th Youth Salon in Zagreb, New Jörg Gallery in Vienna, KS Contemporary in Kornberg, SLUG Gallery Leipzig, and Kunsthalle Bratislava. She is the recipient of the 2015/2016 Prešeren Award from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana and the national Jakopič Award for Young Artist in 2022.
TEXT & CURATOR: Olesia Shuvarikova
PHOTOGRAPHY: Zupanov
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