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".

Ricardo Brey

(c)photo: Isabel Brey, Ghent
Obra en Rojo (Work in red), 2012-2013
Object , 23 x 33 x 33 cm (box closed), 18 x 75 x 75 cm (box open), auxiliary box: 12 x 30 x 28 cm
paint, fabric, paper, rope, buttons, glass, iron, alabaster, red oxide, one leporello book, auxiliary box

"In fact, Brey's boxes don't simply open, instead they unfurl like a flag. Their interior conditions are the product of multiple interventions as the artist combines the roles of tanner, joiner, carpenter and welder. The box also houses its own fields of reference activated by the very process of opening, unfolding, unraveling and extending -as if the box were the site of so many bodily organs and the acts of viewing or entering it a kind of surgical procedure."

(Welchman, J. Qué le Importa al Tigre una Raya Más: The Futility of Good Intentions, p.52)

Books:

Untitled, 2013

Leporello book: 25 cm x (25 cm) x 265 cm