I would never had imagined that so little water would mean so much to me.
A visitor of Supermarket Independent Art Fair Stockholm, May 2022
Martha Jager | curator Vleeshal Middelburg
Tender activism
When I take a seat in his studio, Hans Overvliet grants me his multiple I.D of a shared bullet. This bullet formed of ice, trapped in a small glass container, is the first exchange between me and Hans and emphasizes the active relationship between maker and receiver that is central to his practice. The melting bullet in my hand questions my position. Poetic but critical, this question continues, even when the bullet, now melted into a layer of water, stands between the art books in my cupboard where it slowly dissolves into nothingness and thus escapes being reduced to an art object.
capes being reduced to an art object.
The dedication to art as a relational verb is central to Overvliet's work. On the one hand, the balance between poetry and criticism is special, so that the work never becomes bitter or pedantic, while at the same time the dialogue with the viewer is actively maintained. It is a tender form of activism that moves and urges action and also continuously questions the role of art.
Martha Jager | curator Vleeshal | 2023
encounters | photo impressions
Luxfer Open Space | Česká SkaliceCZE | June 11, 2022
Juxtapose Art Fair | AarhusDNK | August 20 – 22, 2021
ruimteCAESUUR / Studio44SWE | December 6, 2021 - January 7, 2022
CultuurCentrum BruggeBE | April 21 – May 29, 2022
Supermarket Art Fair | Stockholm
SWE | May 25 – May 29, 2022
Slipvallen | Långholmen | StockholmSWE | June 4 – 19, 2022
bahnhof25 | KleveBRD | November 11 – December 3, 2023
Verbeke Foundation | KemzekeBelgium | 17/11/’24
presented in / on:
Luxfer Open Space | Czech Republic | June 11 – August 30, 2021
Juxtapose Art Fair | Aarhus | Denmark | August 20 - 22, 2021
ruimteCAESUUR | Middelburg | December 22, 2021 – January 06, 2022
Studio44 | Stockholm | December 22, 2021 – January 19, 2022
DiEM 25 - DiEM Gallery | web | from January 2022 on
Cinema U 2 - Peace Letter to Ukraine 2 | web | March 6 – May 31, 2022
curated by Wilfried Agricola de Cologne and Yarina Butkowska
AiR Biekorf - Misfigure | Brugges | Belgium | April 21 – May 29 2022
Supermarket Art Fair | Stockholm | Sweden | May 26 - 29, 2022
Slipvillan | on Långholmen in Stockholm | Sweden | June 4 - 18, 2022
kunstverein projektraum bahnhof25 | Kleve | Germany
November 11 – December 3, 2023 | curated by team bahnhof25
Verbeke Foundation | Kemzeke | Belgium
Opening oeuvre-exhibition | November 17, 2024 | curated by Marie Verboven
Kunsthal 45 | Den Helder | March 16, 2025 | curated bt Margo van der Pool
Click here for the time-laps video
Under contemporary conditions, the assertion of aesthetic autonomy is, in itself, a political claim.
Nicholas Brown1
DISTANT SUFFERING XXI
i.d. of a shared ice bullet
Reflecting on the conversations during the slow melting of i.d. of a shared ice bullet, Adorno comes to mind. He too taught me to look at art in a layered, but above all, in a political way. At the roles of the art producer, the art consumer, and all entities that move in between, the ideological angles in art history, etc.
All this of course within the economic paradigm of the ruling class.
Adorno set me on the content of my artistic path with “Art is not a matter of pointing up alternatives but rather resisting, solely through artistic form, the course of the world, which contitouted as "Hot Bullet Shape Mode."
course of the world, which continues to hold a pistol to the heads of human beings.”2
I also felt almost personally supported by him: Theodor Adorno perhaps came the closest to making the ultimate defence of l'art pour l'art by claiming that “art becomes social by its opposition to society, and it occupies this position only as autonomous art. It criticizes society by merely existing.”3 (italic h.o.)
Back to the beautiful conversations during the melting. My art work i.d. of a shared ice bullet consists of a frozen bullet in a small bottle provided with a cork and a label carrying the title. The bullet is from an AK-47 Kalashnikov. of
bullet is made with the aid of a mold resembling the cartridge case of an AK-47 Kalashnikov, the most massproduces assault rifle on the planet. The image of this gun is portrayed in many documentations of war. The bullet, one rarely sees. The results on the other hand . . .
the first time solo in June 2021 in Luxfer Open Space in Česká Skalice, the Czech Republic. As an opening session.
During the Juxtapose Art Fair in Aarhus, Denmark, for the first time my wife Willy; there we handed people the art work one on one. We let the melting decide about the time frame: it guided the conversation almost like an hourglass.
Immediately after the little bottle with the frozen bullet leaves the freezer, the ‘decay’ starts: the bullet begins to melt. It melts from a metaphor of a lifethreatening object – a bullet - into a life creating element: water.
I presented i.d. of a shared ice bullet for the first time in June 2021 in Luxfer
The people who thawed the bottle in their hands all became emotional after a very short time. First of all they considered the work as beautiful and than –sometimes at a deep personal level –meaningful. Some wanted to stop the process by putting the bottle back into the freezer, others photographed the the freezer, others
ongoing process during our conversation, some tried to minimize skin contact to slow down the melting process. Many lamented that the work confronted them with their own vulnerability in a way almost how Adorno was quoted by Byung-Chul Han in his 'Saving beauty': “We should return to the kind of beauty that makes us (…) in Theodor Adorno’s terms, realizing our own finitude.”4
self – is actually the only one who has seen the art work in an "original" state. The rest of the planet has to trust that the "story" is based in reality, even in truth, that this water was once an ice bullet.
In many cases, the conversation half way down focused on the preliminary result: a small glass bottle with a label and a cork with a little water in it. The owner – apart from the artist himself – is actually the only one who has
So the only “realistic” image is anchored in the owners memory as long as she / he / x remembers that. “Indeed, this escape from reality led to an experience which could (and did) become a powerful force invalidating the actual prevailing bourgeois values, namely by shifting the locus of the individual’s realization from the domain of the performance principle and the inner resources of the human being: pas-
sion, imagination, conscience.”5
On a personal level, the specific work also shows the physical dynamics of my physical present; me being 72 years old and survived cancer, be it with a lot of negative side effects. The vulnerability and transience of myself and others around me are quite realistic facts in my life.
So part of the work of course is shaping my own finitude. An experience I share with all those wonderful people I had the privilege to meet while melting the ice bullet under the watchful eye of Adorno . . .
One of the melted bullets accompanied Azumi Okabe to Niigata City, Japan . . .
Courtesy photo 2022 ©Azumi Okabe
1 Nicholas Brown, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Real Subsumption under Capital, nonsite.org., March 13, 2012
2 Theodor W. Adorno, “Commitment,” in Notes to Literature, Volume Two, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, (New York: Columbia UP, 1974) p. 80
3 Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, eds. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, (Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1997) p. 225 – p. 226
4 Byung-Chul Han, Saving Beauty, (Polity, 2018) p. 22 – p. 24
5 Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Boston: Beacon, 1978) p. 4 – p. 5
distant suffering | the project
Hans Overvliet | DISTANT SUFFERING
W.F.T. van Houtum
Since 2013, by means of the ongoing art-series DISTANT SUFFERING, the Dutch artist Hans Overvliet (Leiden, 1952) investigates the role of the media in their representation of (military) violence. This, in the context of themes as perception, memory and identity formation.
Overvliet uses a various range of media, symbols and codes, bringing together dichotomies like beauty and violence, refinement and brutality, the sublime and the vulgar.
As a reporter, Overvliet was an eyewitness to the events in the Middle East during the 1980s. Of (art) history are always present.
East during the 1980s. Of course these experiences resonate in DISTANT SUFFERING. So aspects of power, politics, exclusion, censorship and the connection between artist, artwork and viewer infiltrate his multifaceted conceptual oeuvre.
Elements of DISTANT SUFFERING were exhibited in the Netherlands, Belgium, Pakistan, England, Italy, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Turmey, Lebanon, Germa-ny, the U.S.A. , Albania, France and Sweden.
Hans Overvliet was born in Leiden in 1952; he lives in Middelburg and works in Vlissingen, both in the province of Zeeland in the Netherlands. Next to his art-work he is, together with his wife Willy van Houtum, the founder and every day guardian of the 28-year old space for contemporary art: ruimteCAESUUR.
Next to his art-work he is, together with his wife Willy van Houtum, the founder and every day guardian of the 29-year old space for contemporary art: ruimteCAESUUR.
Material
Mold ‘hot Bullet Shape Mode’ from Etsy, Hong Kong
061207 1 H14-03-020 1 PL191 129 02 187 A.
Small bottles from Etsy, Hong Kong; High borosilicate glass and cork, volume: 85 oz (25ml), 90 mm x 20 mm; opening: about 13 mm.
Severin GB 8882 - freezer | Steel console 110 x 60 x 60 cm | powder coated
Time-laps video
Production | special thanks to
Willy van Houtum | research, implementation, production, video, text
Loek Overvliet | console
Jochem Westrate | for CineCityXL productions | time-laps video – stills
Photos
Willy van Houtum, Roman RejholdCZ , Rikard FåhraeusSE , Azumi OkabeJP ,
Ivan van de CapelleBE , Ruben HordijkNL/SE , Giel Louws, Durk KnickhoffBRD
Contact
curiositas@zeelandnet.nl | www.hansovervliet.com
Exhibitions | special thanks to Roman Rejhold and Kate Štroblová | curators for Luxfer Open Space | Czech Republic
Sasha Rose Richter | Pamela Grombacher | Jacob Juhl | Cecilie Bernts curators for the Juxtapose Art Fair | Aarhus | Denmark
Rikard Fåhraeus | curator for team Studio44 | Stockholm | Sweden
teamCAESUUR | Middelburg | the Netherlnds
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne and Yarina Butkowska curators The New Museum of Networked Art
Jan Verhaeghe | curator for CultuurCentrum Brugge | Bruges | Belgium
Kit Hill | curator for DiEM25 / DiEm Gallery – website
Alice Máselníková | Andreas Ribbung
creative Directors Supermarket Independent Art Fair Stockholm | Sweden
Rikard Fåhraeus and team
The artist-house Slipvillan on Långholmen | Stockholm | Sweden
Leni van den Berge | owner of de roofprintpers | Middelburg | the Netherlnds
Dirk D. Knickhoff, Elisabeth Schink, Ulrike E.W. Scholder | board & curators kunstverein projektraum bahnhof25 | Kleve | Germany
Marie Verbovem, Geert Verbeke | Verbeke Foundation | Kemzeke | Belgium
Publication
the artistamp revue | 2023 | 20 mail artists on ‘the stamp’ initiative: Adam Roussopolous - Petri Dish Archives
Financial support
Supermarket Independent Art FairSweden: Mondrian Fund
Luxfer OpenSpace Czech Republic and Juxtapose Art Fair AarhusDenmark: SBKM / Vleeshal - Middelburg
SlipvillanSweden: Kulturrådet | Region Stockholm
Banhhof25Germany: SBKM / Vleeshal – Middelburg
Verbeke FoundationBelgium: SBKM / Vleeshal – Middelburg
back page | the melting of the ice bulet in Česká SkaliceCZE | June 2022
