The exhibition “Reversing Gaze” by artists Răzvan Neagoe and Matthieu Marre took place at Espace Intermédiaire Gallery in Brussels, Belgium, from April 24 to June 1, 2025.
“Cut my optic nerve, I can see inside,” a friend told me in a dream. Biologically, the point where the optic nerve connects is our link to the visible world, but it is also the only point on the retina where we do not see—a blind spot. Psychoanalysis considers consciousness a kind of blind spot as well—something that blocks true knowledge. To perceive what is invisible, what is hidden deep within our psyche, we must turn our gaze inward, we must reverse the gaze.
Analog photography seems inextricably tied to the visible, to what is there in front of the camera. Yet many photographers use it to describe inner, intangible, and ineffable experiences. The camera’s dark chamber has been compared to the unconscious. Images of reality are absorbed by the camera and emerge transformed, like a photographic negative developed in the dark chamber of our mind. Both photographers in this exhibition are concerned with things that are not visible—the secret layers of reality that do not speak to the eye but to an obscure sense yet to be discovered. The “optical unconscious,” as Walter Benjamin would call it. Their photographs are made of the same material as dreams and memories.
gallery-text – Teodora Cosman
