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".

Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven / AMVK

(c)image: AMVK
Video , 00:14:30
computer animation

"In this computer-animation Van Kerckhoven links together portrait paintings she made between 1987 and 1990 of 54 people that visited her unexpectedly. These people are acquaintances, friends and relatives.  She linked each person chronologically to some words of the poem “Die Loreley” of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). Melancholy, fate and inevitability of seduction and doom. Sailors, attracted by the enchanting singing of the wind through the Loreley, a riff in the Rhine, reck their ships in trance against it. The Loreley-movie is a morphing of 54 faces, divided in 6 strophes.  The soundtrack evokes a barge bobbing up and down, in the water."

"At the centre of a social universe, the abstract, which manifests itself as a symbol, tends to manifest itself in the shape of a figure. This happens in a complex way, fragmented. Look at the ancient gods." 

− AMVK


Sound, images and editing: AMVK

Producer: Club Moral