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".

    René Magritte

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    °1898 †1967
    Born in Lessen, BE
    Died in Schaarbeek, BE

    René Magritte’s oeuvre is filled with the theme called ‘la condition humaine’. In the thirties he created two paintings with this exact name. On both canvases he depicts a painting within a painting: showing the duality between the painted visual and reality, even though both seem to be depicting the same image. This is Magritte’s answer to the question about the perception of reality: man is self-conscious, and yet he is not a representative of this consciousness. Time and space are depicted by the distance between the visual and reality, but at the same time between the real world and the fictitious one. Prime examples of this are Magritte’s landscapes, which are in fact mirages but the viewer believes and accepts them for reality and is thus a lot further removed from reality than he/she believes.

    Items

    Les Chants de Maldoror, 1945

    René Magritte
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