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 Galerie Tanit , Munich -Beyrouth
    Axis Mundi, 2006
    Ricardo Brey
    Mixed Media , 300 x 50 x 50 cm (two parts: 1/ iron base 2-glove)
    gloves, iron

    “Gloves  are gloves. I find them on the street in winter because everyone in Europe loses gloves, they’re in a hurry because of the cold, or I go to the second-hand market and buy a hundred of them for nothing. I collect them. Why? Because gloves are the garment that is most like the human body. A shoe is not like a foot, pants don’t look like legs, but gloves do look like the hand. And the hand has connotations of understanding, power, and intimacy. The glove already had a meaning that I don’t need to add to, even more if the glove has been used, since it has the mark of time. So, when you put together a quantity of gloves, it acquires a totemic character and a mass; the collection becomes an abstract object although it is made of individual items. Right off, people ask questions and a dialogue is created. A glove is a lost glove. A thousand gloves is a quest.”

    (Fernández, S.S., Que le importa al Tigre una Raya Más: The Futility of Good Intentions, 2014, p.140.)

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