25 | hans overvliet | distant suffering / about the bullet

DISTANT SUFFERING

hansovervliet.com

In loving memory of Dorgham Quraiqi In the early morning of March 18, 2025 our dear friend, the artist Dorgham Quraiqi - together with his entire family - was murdered in Shuja'iyya, in the southern quarter of Old City of Gaza by the criminal apartheidsstaat Israel.

His travelling cinema, his swimming pools and theatre shows made many thousands of displaced children smile over the last years throughout the Strip A wonderful and talented person is no more.

We are in deep, deep mourning.

May his soul rest in peace.

cover page Photo Courtesy of ©Giel Louws

hans overvliet curiositas@zeelandnet.nl www.hansovervliet.com

Make something.

Find a use for it.

AND / OR Invent a function.

Find an object.

One thing working one way Another thing working another way.

One thing working different ways at different times.

Take an object.

Do something to it.

Do something else to it. " " " " " " Jasper Johns 1965 | in Catalogue Raisonné of Drawing

the rage of the bullet | 1995 corten steel 3 mm, bee wax | 61 x 61 x 3 cm

DISTANT SUFFERING XXI | i.d. of a shared bullet

video of the time laps

When I take a seat in Hans Overvliet's studio, I receive the 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.

Martha Jager, curator Vleeshal | January 2023

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 | StockholmSWE | May 25 – May 29, 2022

Slipvallen | Långholmen | StockholmSWE | June 4 – 19, 2022

kunstverein bahnhof25 | KleveBRD | November 11 – December 3, 2023

Verbeke Foundation | KemzekeBE | November 17, 2024 – April 23, 2025

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, cork, volume: 85 oz (25ml), 90 mm x 20 mm; opening: about 13 mm Orange label with text DISTANT SUFFERING XXI | I.D. OF A SHARED BULLET www.hansovervliet.com Severin GB 8882 - fridge | Steel console 110 x 60 x 60 cm | powder coated Time-laps video

Production | special thanks to Willy van Houtum | research, implementation, production, primal time-lapse video ( Skalice, Czech Republic, 2021 ) Loek Overvliet | console fridge Jochem Weststrate | time-laps video and stills ( Vlissingen, 2024 ) Photos Willy van Houtum, Roman RejholdCZ, Rikard FåhraeusSE, Azumi OkabeJP, Ivan van de CapelleBE, Ruben HordijkNL/SE, Giel Louws, Dirk KnickhoffBRD Sylvia Hubrouck, teja van hoften

Exhibition | special edition the Open Nights Festival | 9th - 19th October 2025 OFF ART-Stage Presences-group | Larissa - Central Greece the perfomance functioned as the opening act for the 10th edition

Financial support Supermarket Independent Art FairSweden: Mondrian Fund Luxfer OpenSpaceCzech Republic and Juxtapose Art FairDenmark: SBKM / Vleeshal SlipvillanSweden: Kulturrådet | Region StockholmSweden Kunstverein projektraum-bahnof25 | KleveGermany: SBKM / Vleeshal Open Nights Festival | OFF ART-Stage Presences-group LarissaGreece Next page: stills from a promovideo on Facebook by the Festival

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 Juxtapose Art Fair | Aarhus | Denmark Rikard Fåhraeus | curator for team Studio44 | Stockholm | Sweden teamCAESUUR | ruimteCAESUUR Middelburg | the Netherlands 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 Jannike Brantås, Laetitia Deschamps, Madeleine Aleman and Masoud Sh curatorial team artist-house Slipvillan on Långholmen | Stockholm | Sweden Leni van den Berge | owner of de roofprintpers | Middelburg | the Netherlands Dirk D. Knickhoff, Elisabeth Schink, Ulrike E.W. Scholder curatorial team Kunstverein projektraum-bahnhof25 | Kleve | Germany Geert Verbeke, Marie Verboven | Verbeke Foundation | Kemzeke | Belgium Roula Karaferi | The Open Nights Festival | Larissa | Greece

DISTANT SUFFERING XXI

i.d. of a shared ice bullet Reflecting on the conversations during the slow melting of i.d. of a shared 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.”1 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.”2 (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 bulle itselft, one rarely sees. The horrific results on the other hand . . .

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 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 we – my wife Willy and I - 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.

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 fridge, 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.”3 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

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.

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.”4 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

Theodor W. Adorno, “Commitment,” in Notes to Literature, Volume Two, ed. Rolf Tiedemann, (New York: Columbia UP, 1974) p. 80

2

Theodor W. Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, eds. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann, (Minneapolis: U Minnesota P, 1997) p. 225 – p. 226

3

Byung-Chul Han, Saving Beauty, (Polity, 2018) p. 22 – p. 24

4

Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension: Toward a Critique of Marxist Aesthetics (Boston: Beacon, 1978) p. 4 – p. 5

entre acte

Wilfried Agricola De Cologne

DISTANT SUFFERING XXXX

i.d. of an artist's video portrait | 2024 utterly endlessly repurposed naive incantation gesture co-production Hans Overvliet & Jochem Weststrate the video

DISTANT SUFFERING XXXXV

i.d. of a shared gold-plated bullet triptych | studio, study 2025 gold plated ceramic bullet, silk roses, blue velvet, classic bell jar 50 cm Ø | 22 cm gold plated ceramic bullet, silk lilies, blue velvet, classic bell jar 50 cm Ø | 22 cm gold plated ceramic bullet, nest of a blue tit from our garden, unhatched egg, eggshell, blue velvet, classic bell jar 70 cm Ø | 30 cm three consoles 30 x 30 x 110 cm | matt white finish

DISTANT SUFFERING XXXXVII | i.d. of an encased bullet performance | multiple bullets, 113 mm x 15 mm Ø casted with white porcelain plaster in a wooden box - 17 x 5,7 x 5 cm - with brass closure red velvet 2024 | edition I | 50 | 9 A.P. 2025 | (special) edition II | 10 | 3 A.P. All proceeds went to the Hope Foundation

Zeeuwse Art Fair Pop-up the Machine Vlissingen | October 25 and 26, 2024 Photo’s courtesy of ©2024 Sylvia Hubrouck | Bo de Jong | Giel Louws

DISTANT SUFFERING XXXXVI

i.d. of the shared tale of a bullet ( difference and repetition ) frame (120 x 180 cm) with 8 perforated sheets (40 x 60 cm), each with 150 holes filled with 1,200 bullets (113 mm x 15 mm Ø) casted with white porcelain plaster Toonbeeld | Verbeeldingsroute / Imagination Pathway 2025 July 5 – September 14, 2025 Museum ‘ING-gang’ | Stadhuisplein / Terneuzen thanks to Hein Verwer, Cor de Lange and Giel Louws

DISTANT SUFFERING XXXX

i.d. of an artist’s portrait special cut of the video selected in ‘Zeeland Film Day’ Filmfestival Film by the Sea, Flushing September 12 through September 21 As is tradition, all selected films were also screened during Zeeland Film Day on 20 September, the last Saturday of the festival. 2025.

Photo’s next pages: Sylvia Hubruoch and Bo de Jong Link to the (Dutch) festival version.

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

the videos of DISTANT SUFFERING XXI | i.d. of a shared bullet DISTANT SUFFERING XXXX | i.d. of an artist's video portrait were shown in the program of

The New Museum of Networked Art

synoptic words Despite all the preparations, starting in 2022 - finding the ‘proper’ bullet, making the 3D prints from the ‘appropriate’ one, figuring out the right size, making the molds and starting to cast the bullets from porcelain plaster - I had no idea what I was going for. No idea on what I was working toward. Other than transforming the object ‘bullet’. A bit like the concept of my ice bullet.

The first 120 bullets or so I just focused on the concentration of the making and - I hoped – on the direction. That went well until D. intuitively noticed that merely the making of these bullets was the artwork in itself.

From then on, things went awry. After all, if casting the porcelain plaster bullets was the work itself, where did that artwork end?

While working on the series, things changed fundamentally in the Middle East: Hamas and affiliated groups on October 7 radically altered the resistance to Israel’s occupation of Gaza.

As a result, Israel began a genocidal massacre of the Gaza population, i.e. also on my friends.

Bullets, primarily designed to kill and wound, in this art work are completely transformed from destructive to harmless objects in this context. Bullets from porcelain gypsum completely undermine their destructive potential; placed in grave-like rows, a transformation occurs from an object of violence to an object of reflection and memory.

By ‘verwandeln’ the destructive element of the bullet into something fragile, harmless, aesthetically pleasing, the now-appearing object reaches multiple layers of imagination.

ject reaches multiple layers of imagination. Into the two directions I describe in the appendix on the next page, with the help of Deleuze and Bataille.

Conversations with filmmaker Jochem Weststrate about this project revealed an other personal layer. My art is very often composed of a multitude of variations on one form: 250+ cans with plaster keys, 136+ portraits of assassinated journalists, 3,000 images of clouds & explosions, destruction and sea-waves, 38+ “water” paintings, 1,570 casted bullets, etc.

Gilles Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition is always present in the back of my mind . . .

So in the end, the video that Jochem and I made, also became an autonomous videoportrait of this artist.

trait of this visul artist.

At the same time, by casting a number of these bullets every day, I hoped, compulsively and against my better judgment, that the people I know, including many people I can call my friends, in Ukraine, Gaza, Yemen, the West-Bank, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, etc. would stay alive. Thus, the work and its possible purpose, apart from the making, legitimised itself within itself.

Alas: indeed against my better judgment.

appendix

Georges Bataille reflected on concepts of excess, transgression in the context of the limits of human existence. His work often revolves around how we explore and / or transgress our limits and, in doing so, gain a different understanding of life and death. Art, according to Bataille, is a form of transgression that explores the human condition in its most intense forms, including the relationship between violence and destruction. Hence I use him as a source.

Bataille viewed transgression beyond rule-breaking, as a way to push past the boundaries of conventional thought and experience.

Art, through its various forms, offers a space to explore these boundaries, particularly in the context of violence

cularly in the context of violence and destruction.

So, in Bataille's philosophy, the bullet can symbolise not only the possibility of destruction, but also the energy of what it means to move into the borderland of life and death..

When the bullet is transformed into porcelain, something happens that Bataille would term as a necessary transgression. The bullet itself, once an object of threat, is transformed into an object of vulnerability. This transformation can be seen not only as an aesthetic act, but as an act of resistance to the conventional way of thinking about violence.

The transformation of the bullet is thus an excessive act in itself; it changes the nature, the character of the object and makes it no longer the instrument of violence it originally was.

It is this excessive transformation that also challenges the viewer to reconsider the relationship between destruction and creation. Of course delivered also to us by Friedrich Nietzsche’s juxtaposition ‘creating’ and ‘destruction’.

Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition reveals how repetition in art can redefine perceptual and formal possibilities, examining how to employ seriality, variation, and accumulation to destabilize conventional patterns of sight and thought.

ality, variation, and accumulation to destabilize conventional patterns of sight and thought.

By radically reconfigure an everyday object into art, here I displace its received meanings in favor of new interpretations.

Where Deleuze allows us to see transformation as a medium for a different reality, Bataille lets us feel the transcendence of transformation of what is ‘normal’ into a new form of experience.

Simultaneously Nietzsche’s Gaza abyss gazes back at us. Reflecting mercilessly our moral bankruptcy.

colophon

The financial support Vleeshal SBKM Middelburg

The exhibitions 2024 | Bewaerschole | Burgh Haamstede 2024 | Verbeke Foundation | KemzekeBelgium 2024 | Pop-up the Machine | Vlissingen 2025 | Visioni Altre | VeniceItaly 2025 | RetroQuito’25 | The New Museum of Networked ArtGermany 2025 | Toonbeeld | Terneuzen 2025 | Film by the Sea Festival | Vlissingen 2026 | plan d. | DüsseldorfGermany

The peers Oleg KharchenkoUkraine | Maisara BaroudGaza | Giel Louws | Dani Ploeger Jochem Weststrate | Willy van Houtum | Bo de Jong | Pier Penings The craftsmen Loek Overvliet - rage of the bullet | console for the freezer Hans Bommeljé - 3D-prints / moulds Jaap | JG Schilders - gilding of the bullets The curators Roman RejholdCZ | Kate ŠtroblováCZ | Sasha Rose RichterDK | Jacob JuhlDK Pamela GrombacherDK | Cecilie BerntsDK | Rikard FåhraeusSE | Jan VerhaegheBE Wilfried Agricola de CologneDE| Yarina ButkowskaDE/UA | Kit HillGB | Masoud ShSE Rikard FåhraeusSE | Alice MáselníkováSE | Andreas RibbungSE | Jan Doense Jannike BrantåsSE | Leni van den Berge | Dirk D. KnickhoffDE | Elisabeth SchinDE leon riekwell | Ulrike E.W. ScholderDE | Adolfina de StefaniIT | Arjelien van Dijke Bo de Jong | Roula KaraferiGR | Jyrg MunterDE & Andrea IsaDE Please see also Statement / CV Portfolio

Where should we go after the last frontiers?

Where should the birds fly after the last sky?

Mahmoud Darwish ( 1941 – 2008 )

Back site still from the portrait video