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".

    Vaast Colson

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    (c)image: Creative Commons Licence
    No more superheroes, 2001
    Vaast Colson
    Multiple
    mixed media

    In the piece No more superheroes from Vaast Colson, several of the artist's investigations and sources of inspiration come to coincide.  The tagline is a clear reference to the album No more heroes by the Stranglers from the notorious punk-year of 1977.  The skateboard cult of the 1980s also provides a source of inspiration for Vaast Colson.  The drawing of a bat is again applied with an alcohol ink marker, held clamped by the artist in an anatomical nether-region.

    A favorite theme within Colson's oeuvre is related to the role of the artist.  He is constantly occupied with creating artistic roles, protagonists fashioned for himself.  With the piece No more superheroes, the artist seems to wish to distance the rolls he assigns himself from the heroic exploits of Modernism's glory days.  Colson's protagonists are indeed seldom tragic or dramatic.  His performances or interventions sometimes appear to lead nowhere; they even at times exude an air of boredom.  The portrait of the artist... as mythic anti-hero.    

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