ARCH GALLERY is honored to present the November group exhibition "Gaze: The Presence of Absence" in collaboration with artists Gaspard Albesin, Li Li, Shi Zhiwei, and Zhang Kexue.
In Vie et mort de l’image, Régis Debray frames the gaze as a medium between mental image and material picture—not merely a tool, but a force that unifies the body. This exhibition, titled "Gaze," traces gestures of connection drawn by the invited artists between reality and imagination, visibility and concealment, presence and absence. Through individual, social, and cultural lenses, their works explore how the gaze acts as a bridge, linking seemingly fragmented experiences.
The gaze transforms picture into image and image into picture—a practice that reveals the image as a presence of an absence. Phenomenologically, to gaze is not only to perceive what is present, but also to internally engage with what is absent. When we fix upon a symbol, we face the void it represents; the image thus transcends the physical, pointing toward an absent reality. In this exhibition, the artists harness this energy: urban landscapes rendered cool and detached, fragmented bodies, ordinary objects charged with emotion—all evoke an absence that asks to be filled, suggesting touch, hold, and reconnection.
Here, the tension between absence and presence is not resolved but held open, inviting viewers to encounter the essence of things through contradiction and chance. The works offer a re‑experience of absence through images of presence, touching the intersections of personal feeling, collective memory, and metaphor—where surface meets depth, material meets spirit. Whether viewed socially or intimately, the gaze emerges not just as an act, but as a penetrating force—one that reveals, reconstructs, and carries both reality and what lies beyond it.
