In 2008, Meg Stuart created a one shot video, inspired by the face-to-face videos of Vito Acconci, in which she explored time capsules of compressed presence revolving around simple actions and relational axes. In that video, titled The only possible city, spaces of memory were the starting point. In 2022 Meg Stuart retakes the subject and creates portraits with a dancer, Jayson Batut in the context of Zero Point. For this edition, she further explores the potential of the portrait, resulting in two more pictures, Matija (2024) and Kotomi (2025). These portraits are facing the archive of the inner world and of the outside frame of the sociability and in the centre, between the real and the simulation, lies the gaze. What we are watching, becomes our own interrogation.

‘By examining presence more closely, details appear. Meg Stuart has long been fascinated by the micro-gesture. “The tiny enables expression in daily life”, she says. Shifting focus to the weight or the sound of the gestures offers a new frame for observing the person a little bit differently. The choreographic detailing hints at a motivational ‘inner side’ of what we see, whereas we can only look at the ‘outside’, at the image. In a series of portraits, the gaze is the portal to this space of negotiation. The gaze protects the face by hiding it. The face, as a primary canvas, articulates the barrier of visibility: it simultaneously reveals and conceals, performing a masquerade without ever offering a full picture.

The photographic portrait reflects an abstraction of our time in daily existence, from which Stuart draws an unconventional sense: the transformational dimension of life. The portraits show flickering emotions, flirty self-awareness, joyful play with the unreal, slipping in and out of the performed identities. Here the picture evolves and enters into a realm of dialogue. It conveys both an engagement with and a resistance to the social contract, to the expectations of public appearance. It vividly illustrates the state of being locked into the gaze while being fully present.’ – fragment from the exhibition text by Isabelle Pauwelyn

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