Middle Gate

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    The exhibition project Middle Gate II – The Story of Dymphna is a collaboration between M HKA (Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp) and the cultural centre de Werft in Geel. Middle Gate II is the follow up to the exhibition Middle Gate, curated by Jan Hoet in Geel in 2013. The exhibition concept is closely tied to the legend of the holy Dymphna, saint of the possessed, the mentally ill and patroness against epilepsy and insanity. The legend of Dymphna shares a strong connection to the identity of Geel, "the charitable city".

    Jan Cox

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    ©Collection Province of Antwerp
    La porte des arbres, Pincio, Rome, 1955
    Jan Cox
    Painting , 130 x 52 cm
    oil, canvas

    “Perhaps we’ll open the day’s doors. And then we shall enter the unknown.”[1] 

    Art can open doors to the unknown for the artist, but also for the viewer. Some things we suspect or feel, but often we are grasping at straws. Fiction will let you approach the field, which is only marginally present, and shed light on the dormant and vaguely determined. Jan Cox points to fiction’s strength in removing the factual reality, while also gaining an increased understanding of that reality. Some phenomena or diffuse feelings are best communicated through images.[2]

    [1] Octavio Paz, A Draft of Shadows, and Other Poems, A New Direction Books, New York, 1972, p. 161

    [2] Clair Van Damme in Jan Cox, Snoeck-Ducaju & zoon, Gemeentekrediet, 1996, p.80

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