DISTANT SUFFERING XXXI other than joyful peace, no news from the Western Front www.hansovervliet.com december 22, 2022 – february 24, 2023
Content
Content
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page 05
page 61
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Introduction
Works
Studio set up
Exhibitions
StockholmSweden | Slipvillan
Middelburgthe Netherlands | ruimteCAESUUR
ADAPTATION
StockholmSweden | Langholmen
BREATHE MY DEAR
Los Angelesthe United States | Gallery Durden and Ray
CROSSING BORDERS
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Today’s Armed Conflicts
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DISTANT SUFFERING | the project
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Colophon
for oleg, masoud, olga, mohammed, mehreen, issam, esrin, pamuk and their peers . . .
DISTANT SUFFERING XXXI
other than joyful peace, no news from the Western Front
Oleg K., an artist from Kiev, participated in my poster project ‘i.d. of inequality’, ( May 2020 ) in a way that really touched me. Since then we try to maintain some kind of contact via fb-chat and email. We became friends despite the physical distance. Through this and other art projects, the same friendships came to me with artists from Gaza, Iran, Pakistan, etc.
Countries and people unfortunately also linked by wars, repression and / or ‘natural’ disasters. But above all linked by wonderful human beings.
Their troubles are immense: floods in the country of Mehreen in Pakistan, ‘civil’ wars in the countries where Masoud lived - Iranand Yemen, where Issam’s house was. Unliveble Gaza, where Mohammed triest to survive in a prison, created by the apartheid state of Israel.
On February 24, 2022 the sovereignty of Oleg and Olga was denied. Russia started to destroy Ukraine subsequently. And now, February 2023, in Pamuk's Turkey and Esrin’s Kurdistan . . .
It wasn't until December of 2022 that I was able to put my anger, fear, hopelessness and solidarity into an image. And as usual: it was right in front of me.
I live in a paradise compared to roughly 85% of humanity. A paradise that admittedly step by step is also being destroyed by big business. But still, I don't need to go into the bomb shelter: beneath my sky it’s pretty safe . . .
Middelburg,
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22 december 2022 | hans overvliet
page 5 works
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StockholmSweden | Slipvillan
Durden and Ray Gallery | Los AngelesU.S.A. croSSING BORDERS | September 16 - October 7, 2023 page 70
what idiot came up with the idea of fighting each other for some piece of land?
Today’s Armed Conflicts
The Rule of Law in Armed Conflict Online Portal (RULAC) classifies all situations of armed violence that amount to an armed conflict under international humanitarian law. Today, it monitors more than 110 armed conflicts and provides information about parties, the latest developments, and applicable international law. Some of these conflicts make the headlines, others do not. Some of them started recently, while others have lasted for more than 50 years.
The gruesome list by RULAC for 2023: Cyprus, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Yemen and Western Sahara, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, Pakistan, The Philippines, Mexico and Colombia.
Russia is currently occupying Crimea (Ukraine), Transdniestria (Moldova), as well as South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Georgia), Armenia is occupying parts of Nagorno Karabakh (Azerbaijan).
Since February 2022 there is of course the international armed conflict (IAC) between Ukraine and Russia.
In Zeeland, in the Netherlands there is, other than joyful peace, no news from the Western Front.
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DISTANT SUFFERING – the project
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 seemingly dichotomies like beauty and violence, sophistication and brutality, the sublime and the vulgar.
Aspects of power, politics, exclusion, censorship and the connection between artist, artwork and viewer find their place in his multifaceted conceptual oeuvre.
As a reporter, Overvliet was an eyewitness to the events in the Middle East during the 1980’s. Of course these experiences resonate in distant suffering.
Elements of distant suffering were exhibited in the Netherlands, Belgium, Pakistan, Italy, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden, France, Germany and England.
Hans Overvliet lives and works in the province of Zeeland. Next to his artwork he is, together with his wife Willy van Houtum, the founder and every day guardian of the 29year old space for contemporary art: ruimteCAESUUR.
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: the work never becomes bitter or pedantic, while the dialogue with the viewer is always actively maintained.
It is a tender form of activism that moves and urges action and also continuously questions the role of art.
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Photo © 2023
W.F.T. van Houtum
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Martha Jager | curator Vleeshal Middelburg | January 2023
All pictures made by Moto M7
DISTANT SUFFERING XXXI other than joyful peace, no news from the Western Front
For:
oleg, masoud, olga, mohammed, mehreen, issam, esrin, pamuk and their peers . . .
Work: 52 photo prints | 16,2 x 7,6 cm all photos made by Moto M7 cell phone prints | Canon Imax TS 700 series on 300 gr. Plano Superior | 2 mm. board
Content: (De)tours from Middelburg towards the studio in Flushing with my friends in faraway places in extremely unsafe conditions in my heart and mind.
December 22, 2022 – February 26, 2023
Colophon
These art series were made as a reaction to the (web)conversations I had with Oleg Kharch in Kyiv, Ukraine in which he described his ‘journey’. With his drawings of that journey we made an exhibition in April/ May in ruimteCAESUUR in Middelburg.
Friends in Sweden and the U.S.A. showed the series in their exhibition spaces in 2023: in Stockholm, Sweden, the artist group Slipvillan took care. Thanks to Madeleine Aleman, Jannike Brantås, curator Rikard Fåhraeus, Laetitia Deschamps Fåhraeus and Masoud Shahsavari. The latter was responsable for the installation and the pictures of the event.
In September 2023 Masoud was presenting the works for a second time in Stockholm in the international photo exposition he curated: breath my dear. He took the wonderful pictures too.
Durden and Ray in Los Angeles, the U.S.A. showed the art work also in September in conjunction with ruimteCAESUUR in Middelburg. Thanks to Ben Jackel, Valerie Wilcox, Arezoo Bharthania and curator Carlos Beltran Arechiga.
Special thanks to Giel Louws, who gave me his inspiration and one of his studio walls and Willy van Houtum for supporting me all the way . . .
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www.hansovervliet.com DISTANT SUFFERING XXXI other than joyful peace, no news from the Western Front
