Bruiseless takes its title from the idea of a collision that leaves no visible mark while still producing an effect beneath the surface. Across the exhibition, the body becomes a site where something can be taken, given, imagined or transformed without necessarily being seen. Egg cells, genetic inheritance, pleasure, fantasy and gesture all become ways of thinking about intimacy as something simultaneously physical and social.

Ja Jess (b. 1998, Düsseldorf) works through performance, role-play and what they describe as social “drag-characters,” using constructed identities to examine how social and biopolitical norms move through bodies. Their work has appeared at K21, Documenta 15 and Dortmunder Kunstverein. Andrea Marcellier (b. 1995, Paris) is a French-Venezuelan artist whose sculptures and performances explore gesture, tenderness, violence and desire; she studied at Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and also holds a degree in psychology.