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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    (c)photo: M HKA
    Charmeur de Serpent, 1997
    Ricardo Brey
    Object , 250 x 400 x 200 cm
    Rubber tube, clarinet, necklace

    "Wind instruments play a great role in the installational arrangements, above all in the later phases of Brey’s work: In Humming (2010), a clarinet is enveloped in a wire mesh, which in a poetic way seems to represent the visual substrate of a harmony of the spheres as the horizon of desires in human striving. The title of Body and Soul (2012) refers to the most famous composition of the standard-setting swing saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, and places a shiny silver saxophone like an archetype in front of the mouth of a wooden sculpture. In three works bearing the title Charmeur de Serpent, Brey combines flutes with old-fashioned black rubber hoses, which are rolled up and interwoven in rhythmic patterns. The structure of Cada Cosa makes one think of a musical score, while in You Can’t ’Scape From What You Are (2012), a kind of gramophone horn from the first half of the twentieth century is placed at the center."

    (source: Miessgang, T., Qué le Importa al Tigre una Raya Más: The Futility of Good Intentions., 2014, p. 108, p.111)

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