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".

    Guy Mees

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    (c)image: M HKA
    6 x 4 min. (Portretten) [6 x 4 min. (Portraits)], 1974
    Guy Mees
    Film , 00:24:00
    digital betacam, dvd, b/w, sound

    The video breakthrough. Video is the perfect symbol of what for some time have been called the ‘new media’, signalling the start of an opening up of the hierarchical structure of the ‘old media’ which was to lead to the present ‘e-culture’. The first system, called ‘Phonovision’, goes back to the 1920s. The first TV pictures were stored on ordinary gramophone records. In Belgium, the ICC was one of the first places where video art was shown. The ICC was an international avant-garde arts centre set up by the then new Flemish Community in 1970. This is the institution from which the M HKA emerged. In addition, in 1974 Flor Bex set up the first Belgian video studio for artists, called ‘Continental Video’. A cinema was opened in an old bus, and this ‘mobile museum for modern media’ was able to take the new art out to the people.

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