Through the Gate / An(g)archivery

How might we come to know, or forget, the Gate archive? What questions arise out of the material remains of the Gate Foundation (1988 to 2006), and its dis/integration or dispersal into the Van Abbemuseum collection? Moving circuitously through the catalogued and un-catalogued, the apparent and obscure, I begin by looking out for the Gate’s articulations of ‘Asia’ in its commitment to ‘non-Western art’, and traces of the ‘Asian artists’ who moved through it. Tiong Ang, an artist whose practice traverses both the Gate and Van Abbe, emerges as a particularly interesting figure. Three early works bought by Van Abbe in the mid-1990s were periodlcally exhibited under the museum’s acquisition displays, with ‘Dutch art’ and variant titles. Ang also featured prominently in several Gate projects, foregrounding ‘non-Western’, ‘migrant’, ‘foreign’ and ‘other’ artists. Shifting abruptly from sculptural painterly objects to situation comedy, to collaborative productions and film/performance installations, Ang’s practice arguably exceeds and defies both archive and collection. His deviations through a series of critical and aesthetic turns provoke at least two questions: How might the museum move to re-position Ang’s work? And how might Ang’s work potentially re-position the museum?

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