Middle Gate

    NLEN

    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 M HKA, Antwerp / Donated by Adriaan Raemdonck, 2014, image: (c) M HKA
    Untitled, 1973
    Jan Cox
    Drawing , 755 x 565 mm
    charcoal on paper

    These charcoal sketches of an organic aspect evoke a good many questions and might at first seem a bit strange, for here we essentially are dealing with an abstraction of feelings and sense-experience.  The figure looks like a butterfly, and makes us think of the earlier works Butterfly of Love (Boston, 1960), Escapade de Papillon (Boston, 1961) and Butterfly of Tears (Boston, 1963).  The butterfly motif also returns later in The Fog in Maine (Boston, 1974) and in De droeve vlinder (Antwerp, 1975). 

    Applying Freudian dream analysis to contemporary art, we might suggest that first-and-foremost the artist represents him/herself in the work, and that certain feelings continue to emerge as recurring signs or motifs.  This butterfly and other animals - but also shells and flowers - within Jan Cox's oeuvre give shape to particular, acutely felt emotions.

    The butterfly is a sort of indefinable thing, of which the 'eyes' are clear and recognizable.  Just as with Untitled (1979) where the motif of the door dominates, here the 'eyes' (like 'two fringed carbuncles') again evoke the feminine and reflect upon the quest for freedom. 

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