26-27 | HANS OVERVLIET_WORK-EXPO 2026-27

work | exhibitions 2026 - 2027

hansovervliet.com

Photo cover: Westkappelse Sea dike on a Dutch day

work | exhibitions 2026 - 2027 ©2023 W.F.T. van Houtum

Ever tried. Ever failed.

No matter. Try again.

Fail again.

Fail better.

Samuel Beckett | 1983 | Worstward Ho

works | exhibitions 2026

art works in progress 2026–2027

Giel Louws | Performance | 15 x 21 cm acryl op doek | 2025

DISTANT SUFFERING LI

i.d. of the persistence of the clinique Colmar | Deir al-Balah

the catalogue

DISTANT SUFFERING LIV

i.d. of a vanishing object Leiden 1959 | West Bank 2025

DISTANT SUFFERING LVI | i.d. of shared betrayal Work cotton pouches with bullet holes caused by air pistol Webly Tempest 4,5 mm, nr. 221796, Webly&Scott LTD, Shagai Parboil rice, mixed with Riz noir interdit, Maison Sabarot, video, courtesy by ©Myuz Ahmed, July 27, 2025, Gaza Strip, edited to black and white with scratch filter, 24” TV- Samsung LF22T450FQUX | Speedlink BRIO - Stereo Soundbar, brown paper bag from bakehouse ’t Zand, Middelburg, Monzana Storage Rack Bookcase, 5 Shelves, 135,5 x 58 x 27 cm, July 27 – August 29, 2025.

Support Myoz You can support Myuz Ahmed in his work to heal traumatised children in his Children's Psychological Support Center: http://paypal.me/myuzgaza123 | https://gofund.me/6c7692e9 Next pages work in the studio / stills from the video Click here for the catalogue

Grandfather Visser For over a year now, I receive videos from my Gazan friend and colleague Myuz Ahmed. Myuz is helping traumatised children in the Gaza Strip. In his daily videos he, without further ado, shows what remains of his world by simply walking in his utterly destroyed habitat. One on one.

Myuz’ images pile up in my head with all the other horrors of that day. Of course it does not leave me unmoved, but it does not overwhelm me either.

Until 26 July. A reel of just under seven seconds. I see a bearded man crouching down, scraping something out of the sand and putting that something in a brown paper bag.

For a moment, I manage to convince myself that I am not seeing what I’m seeing. That this is not a man trying to extract the last remnants of some spilled rice from the sand for his starving family somewhere in a tent.

After a few seconds, my defences collapse and I realise what I am seeing.

Suddenly, my grandfather's history becomes a full-colour reality. I see him returning tired and emaciated from a trip in winter 1944 from Leiden beyond Haarlem. To the polders where his family originated from. He has hung two panniers on his bicycle – indeed with wooden tyres – containing some potatoes and vegetables to feed his family.

As he returns at the Morspoort, he is stopped by four German soldiers and forced to throw his hard-earned belongings into the canal - the Morssingel.

I would like to point out that my grandfather did not tell this story to vent his hatred for the Nazis: he always added that “we” would never resort to such practices. As a child, he made me promise that solemnly; I will never forget the look in his eyes when he said that.

Watching the man in the video endlessly, I hear Grandfathers Vissers’ voice, I feel his anger, his powerlessness, the sadness, the humiliation, the defeat.

The sadness about the man in the video is now hitting me hard and will completely paralyse me for a few days.

completely paralyse me for a few days.

Because I had solemnly promised my Grandpa that we would never let it come to this again. That we had drawn up international laws. Indeed in accordance with the Magna Carta Libertatum from 1215 we established the U.N., installed the I.C.C. (in The Hague of all places!) as the successor to the Nuremberg Trials, we set up the Geneva Conventions (Article 47!), etc., etc.

Never again exclamation mark.

And yet: the man in the video was forced to perform the same humiliating and life-threatening act my grandfather Visser was forced to do in the extreme cold winter of 1944.

We have betrayed ourselves greatly . . .

DISTANT SUFFERING LVII | i.d. of Herschel’s bullet cyanotype on damask and handmade paper 350 gsm multiple / edition 25 + 25 + 5 A.P. | 2025 - 2026 in co creation with Bo de Jong All proceeds from this multiple will go to the HOPE Foundation, which works with professional artists to help traumatized children in the Gaza Strip.

experimenting in the studio

DISTANT SUFFERING LVIII

i.d. of the face German version | revisited (2025)

i.d. des Antlitzes The beauty of the other's uniqueness must be accompanied by the realization that the other is completely and even frighteningly different from me.

Emmanuel Lévinas (1906 – 1995)

face à face

Emmanuel Levinas and the Face-to-Face Encounter: Facing the Other Levinas identifies the personal encounter with another human being—the Other—as the fundamental experience of ethical responsibility. This responsibility—my responsibility for the other—forms the core of Levinas's philosophy.

In his work, he focuses on what he calls the face-to-face encounter with the Other, an experience in which an individual becomes aware of the Other's mortality and vulnerability.

To emphasize the transcendent otherness of the other, he repeatedly and deliberately capitalizes the Other—as I have done here.

Levinas argues that we should view the Other as a unique person, not as a reflection of ourselves; that this fellow human being is not merely another person, but appears as a strange other. More importantly, as an inaccessible creature that paradoxically calls upon my responsibility.

In his view, avoiding the gaze of others is the beginning of all violence. In the 1969 essay "Freedom and Commandment," he writes: "The physical limitation of freedom in captivity is preceded by a fundamental form of violence. Violence and tyranny are characterized by the fact that they do not look into the eyes of what they are "treating"; or, to put it more precisely, by the fact that they find no face in it at all." And a little later, he concludes: "I am only free in the face of the Other."

It is from this perspective that I want to look into the eyes of the media workers murdered by the army of the apartheid state of Israel in this work.

They were all Others. Others who did not know me, but who, despite all the dangers, wanted to inform me of the genocide they were in the midst of, and of which they themselves ultimately became victims. They took photos, videos, recorded audio, edited, assisted, blogged, streamed, used Facebook, and so on, documenting the horrors like eyewitnesses.

As they did so, most of them looked me straight in the eye, face to face, until, through merciless violence, they ceased to be the Other. . .

Abdallah Alwan Holy Quran Radio, Midan, Mugtama, Al-Jazeera Ermordet in Jabalia, 18. Dezember 2023.

Den Haag war leider unbeeindruckt.

The Torentje, the office of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, German version, seen from the Mauritshuis, from the room with the last self-portrait of Rembrandt van Rhijn from 1669.

The work Videos with photos of 186 media representatives who were assasinated by the Israeli army between October 7, 2023, and September 14, 2025; Video with 186 postcards of places I visited in Europe while commemorating these colleagues; 186 Postcards on 300 gm; Prints by de Witte Print&Design, ’s Gravenpolder; Handi Stitch Classic pinking shears | 4 teeth - 2 mm high / 18 mm wide; Glass plate 65 x 35 cm x 8 mm; Glass plate support 8 mm | glastotaal.nl | PT027537001; Photobook, 32 x 15 cm, made by bookbinding workshop De Boeckenherrebergh | Ruth Bonnewel; Monitors | each controlled by a Mini HD Media Player - afinjo.nl; Paper bin | rectangular | black metal | 17 l | Able & Borret.

The German version was conceived for an exhibition at plan-d in Düsseldorf, April-May 2025.

Click here for the catalogue in the process of becoming.

Click here for the catalogue of an earlier version, included in the collection of the Verbeke Foundation.

statement

Martha Jager, curator Vleeshal in MiddelburgNL about the oeuvre (2023) after a studio visit: 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, in 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.

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.

Aspects of power, politics, exclusion, censorship and the connection between artist, artwork and viewer infiltrate his multifaceted conceptual oeuvre.

As a reporter, Overvliet was an eyewitness to the events in the Middle East during the 1980s. Of course these experiences resonate in distant suffering.

Elements of distant suffering were exhibited in the Netherlands, Belgium, Pakistan, England, France, Italy, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Albania, Germany, Lebanon, the U.S.A., Brasil, Argentina and Sweden.

In 2023, his whole body of paper collages ( 1999 – 2012 ) joined Geert Verbeke’s renowned collection of collages and assemblages.

In 2024 - 2025 the whole oeuvre of distant suffering was exhibited in the museum part of the Verbeke Foundation. All works will then be included in the permanent collection.

Next to his art-work Hans is, together with his wife Willy van Houtum, the founder and every day guardian of ruimteCAESUUR, the 30-year old space for contemporary art in Middelburg in the province of Zeeland.

acknowledgement

Thanks - people Willy, Giel, Geert , Marie , Jorieke, Jochem, Belgium Germany Ko, Johan, Tineke , Jürgen , Dani, Bo, Sylvia, Erjee, Ilja, leon, Hans, Chris, Onno, Jan, Sarah-Jane, RitaGaza, Simon, SilvioItalia, Sonja, Tonnie, Adriaan, Daniël, Edwin, WilfriedGermany, Sam, Ben, Neeltje, Sam, Guus, RezanSyria, Sjef, MarwanGaza, MohamedGaza, RaedGaza, YasserGaza, MaisaraGaza, SohailGaza, Godelieve, Leni, WissemTunesia, Marianne, Erica, Ruud, Marten, Loek, EbeedGaza, Dirk&UliGermany, Lucia, AdolfinaIItalia, Chris, Gerrit, Fé, MohamedGaza, Roos, Anne-Lyke, Floor, Pier, Anke, Thomas, OlegUkraine, OlenaUkraine, Willy, Marlize, Arjelien, Kisito, RoulaGreece, Ruth, GerryGreat Britain, TopracGreat Britain, Jan, IssamYemen, Belgium

Belgium

Thanks - instututes kunstwerkplaats Kipvis, Verbeke FoundationBelgium, ruimteCAESUUr, uitgeverij De Bovenkamer, no-intituteGermany, Omroep Zeeland, Wij Zijn De Stad, Lacuna StudiosSpain, Roofprintpers, Toonbeeld, Kunsthaus HamburgGermany, Movies That Matter, Mohamed Hart-ArtGaza, Matera International PhotographyItaly, Volos Art AssociationGreece, Sisyphos-Gesellschaft Germany, Friends Tent of Nations Nederland, Stichting Het Rode Ei Goes, Lancaster UniversityGreat Britain, Film by the Sea Vlissingen, The New Museum of Networked ArtGermany , Open Nights FestivalGreece, Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary ArtsGreat Britain

hans overvliet studio-address | Dreesstraat 2 Vlissingen home-address | Lange Noordstraat 67, NL-4331 CC Middelburg www.hansovervliet.com | curiositas@zeelandnet.nl team member of www.caesuur.nu www.ikbeneengod.one click here for my condensed portfolio click here for my extended portfolio click here for my C.V.

An object that tells of loss, destruction, disappearance of objects.

Does not speak of itself.

Tells of others. Will it include them?

Deluge.

Jasper Johns Sketchbook | 1964

work | exhibitions 2025 - 2026 www.hansovervliet.com curiositas@zeelandnet.nl