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".

    Ricardo Brey

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    Courtesy of the artist and Courtesy Alexander Gray Associates, New York © Ricardo Brey/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
    Wingbeats, 2006
    Ricardo Brey
    Mixed Media , variable dimensions
    taxidermy and golden chain

    "[...] the most valid form of the incarnation of music as a "healing force for the universe" in the work of Ricardo Brey is to be found in the sculpture Wing Beats, dating from 2006. It is composed of different modules, which draw their own respective narratives along behind them, like comet tails. The work comprises an arrangement of gold chains, which have been heaped into a pile on the floor and then wander up the wall in a sweeping line, the form of which reminds one of a sine wave. The installation is crowned by a bird's head, the beak of which provokingly points out from the two-dimensionality of the arrangement. The work plays on a reference in an eighteenth-century text by Anton Josef Kirchweger to the aurea catena Homeri, Homer's golden chain.

    (Miessgang, T., Qué le Importa al Tigre una Raya Más: The Futility of Good Intentions, 2014, p. 111.)

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