The selection of works brought together in this exhibition by Montserrat Soto (Barcelona, 1961), created between 1996 and 2001, marks a pivotal moment in her career, during which the artist consolidated her exploration of perception, space and the construction of the gaze.
Far from viewing photography as a means of recording, Soto conceives of it as a mechanism of mediation. What appears in his images is not reality itself, but a reality that has been displaced, filtered and reconstructed. The photographic image functions simultaneously as a ‘pseudo-presence and a sign of absence’. This tension—between what is present and what is missing—constitutes one of the fundamental themes of his work.
In these works, the viewer takes centre stage. The systematic absence of human figures does not imply emptiness, but rather a direct invitation to symbolically occupy that space. The work is not complete without the presence of the body moving through it: it is through this interaction that the image fully becomes an experience. It is not, therefore, a matter of passive contemplation, but of traversing, inhabiting and projecting oneself.
Presented in large formats, the images take on an almost installation-like quality that intensifies this physical relationship, placing the viewer within the work rather than in front of it.
One of the recurring elements of this period is the emergence of structures that act as boundaries: thresholds, openings or incomplete architectural forms. These ‘barriers’ function not merely as physical obstacles, but as perceptual devices that intensify the gaze. By preventing direct access, they create a paradox: the more the passage is blocked, the more the imagination is stimulated, prompting the viewer to “see beyond what usually enters the eye”.
In this sense, the motif of the arch—found in Untitled (Arches)—takes on a particularly significant dimension. The arch, like the frame, is not a decorative element, but a threshold: a place of transition between the visible and the invisible, between what is shown and what lies outside the frame.
From a formal point of view, these works also reveal a metalinguistic dimension: they do not merely show spaces, but also reflect on the very act of looking. As is indicated in the essay, the photographic gesture a26> can be understood as a “cut” in space and in time, an interruption that separates and at the same time constructs meaning . The image is not, therefore, a totality, but a fragment which points to both what it includes and what it excludes.
In this body of work, Soto articulates a practice that oscillates between the sensory and the conceptual. His images, seemingly silent, function as devices for activation: invite a contemplation that is not evasive, but critical. The viewer not only observes, but is confronted with their own position a31> position within the space, of time and of memory.
En última instancia, estas obras plantean una pregunta persistente: ¿qué significa realmente ver? La respuesta no se encuentra en la imagen misma, sino en el umbral que se abre entre ella y quien la contempla.