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Matière vive
Carte blanche to Irene Mauri
Gaëlle Chotard, Baptiste Croze, Frédérique Loutz, Javier Pérez, Raphaëlle Peria, JC Ruggirello, Elsa Sahal, Linda Sanchez, Sabrina Vitali

May 25th – June 20th, 2026

Housed on the first floor of the Galerie Papillon, Matière vive is an exhibition curated by Irene Mauri as part of a carte blanche for Paris Gallery Weekend. Bringing together nine artists from the French scene -Gaëlle Chotard, Baptiste Croze, Frédérique Loutz, Javier Pérez, Raphaëlle Peria, Jean-Claude Ruggirello, Elsa Sahal, Linda Sanchez and Sabrina Vitali- it features a selection of mainly three-dimensional works that explore the themes of the transformation and future of matter. Long regarded as a stable and passive medium, the legacy of a mimetic conception of art in which form takes precedence over substance and the artist's gesture, matter is here envisaged as a force in a state of perpetual becoming. Matière vive takes its starting point precisely from this reversal: the exhibition asserts that every material carries within itself an energy, a memory, a capacity for transformation, what might be called its inherent dynamism. This dynamism refers not only to visible movement, but to the "aura"[1] specific to each work, that tension between what is fixed and what aspires to evolve. The artist acts as a mediator: they guide the material seeking to express itself and, through this gesture, establish a sensitive connection with the viewer.

Inspired by the practice of Linda Sanchez, whose sensitive yet rigorous handling of materials forms the central theme of the exhibition, as is also evident in her concurrent exhibition Pirouettes on the ground floor of the gallery, and by the domestic, lived-in character of the exhibition space, Matière vive brings together works that embody profoundly different forms of dynamism. Several of these works subvert the material itself: materials that are, at first glance, hard, inert, and evocative of resistance and permanence (stone, cement, glass, sandstone, bronze) are shifted from their original appearance and function to reveal an unexpected lightness, a fluidity, an almost corporeal frivolity. In Baptiste Croze's Les saucisses de béton, fibre-reinforced cement takes on the form and gestural quality of suspended food, replicating the process of charcuterie production with a material that, by its very nature, is alien to the living. Elsa Sahal's Fausta, meanwhile, uses ceramics to express distinctly human movements: the droplets of glaze frozen on the surface bear witness to an interrupted gesture. Glass, a paradoxical material, both solid and fragile, takes on soft, supple forms here that evoke the organic and the fluid, combining a playful dimension with feminine sensibility. Other works freeze a gesture or a suspended action in time. Javier Pérez's Un solo latido brings together two hearts sewn together, cast and fused in bronze, capturing the moment of a heartbeat paused in time. Linda Sanchez's Les Pains follow a similar process: the contact between cement and sand has produced a form frozen in its own temporality, as if halted at the moment of its creation. Some are animated by external forces (the breath of the wind, the passing of a visitor) and continue to live within the exhibition space itself: this is the case with Gaëlle Chotard's Sans titre and Frédérique Loutz's Mobile.

Étude pour trou - La patience des pierres by JC Ruggirello pushes this dialogue to the point of oxymoron: a balloon, an ephemeral and living material that deflates and breathes, comes into tension with the absolute permanence of stone, creating a pairing where the ephemeral adapts to the immutable and breathes new life into it. Blessures 2 by Sabrina Vitali, with its rotational forms and organic vocabulary, suggests an ongoing metamorphosis, a visible, two-dimensional evolution driven by the circular movement represented by the dialogue between materials of diverse origins.

Finally, Raphaëlle Peria's 360° en barque #3 explores the potential of slip on stoneware: the technique literally brings the material to the surface, lending it a plant-like and therefore living quality, whilst the work invites the viewer to walk around it, thereby creating a rotational movement that becomes an integral part of the experience. Some are playful, others more organic, yet these works share a common conviction: the material is not merely a medium, but an active catalyst for transformation and sensation. Whether repurposed, suspended, activated or placed in dialogue with one another, they all affirm the existence of a dynamism that precedes and transcends the artist's gesture, and which continues to resonate long after the form has taken shape.


Irene Mauri

 
[1] According to Walter Benjamin, ‘aura’ refers to the unique presence of a work in space and time, its ‘hic et nunc’, which underpins its authenticity and its resistance to any form of reproduction.



ARTISTS

Gaëlle Chotard : born in 1973, Montpellier – leaves and works in Nogent-sur-Marne.

Baptiste Croze : born in 1985, Valence – leaves and works in Marseille.

Frédérique Loutz : born in 1974, Sarreguemines – leaves and works in Paris.

Javier Pérez : born in 1968, Bilbao, Spain – leaves and works in Barcelona, Espagne.

Raphaëlle Peria : born in 1989, Amiens – leaves and works in Paris.

JC Ruggirello : born in 1959, Tunis, Tunisia – leaves and works in Paris.

Elsa Sahal : born in 1975, Bagnolet – leaves and works in Paris.

Linda Sanchez : born in 1983, Thonon-les-Bains – leaves and works in Marseille.

Sabrina Vitali : born in 1986, Thionville – leaves and works in Paris.