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Alida van Gool

video , installatie , fotografie , collage

A cut destroys before it constructs: it opens an image so that something else can take shape. Van Gool uses the cut as a means of deconstructing expectations, narratives and gazes. She works largely with existing images drawn from fashion, erotica, advertising and the archive across different photographic processes, collage, installation and video. Whether vintage or recent, these images carry cultural and historical weight. She considers them the material of expectation: they show how something or someone is supposed to be seen.

Viewers bring along, often unconsciously, their own cultural, historical and other inherited ways of looking. Van Gool’s work skews those expectations and in doing so, brings them to the surface. The female body forms a common thread in her practice. The works operate through a calibrated play of seduction and disruption. The appeal of the source image stays intact, while the reading it was made for is withheld: figures become anonymous, objects fragmented and landscapes unstable. They bring suggestion and imagination back into images that were meant to be declarations.

Van Gool approaches the material from within, as someone formed by the same image culture. Her dual formation, in image-making and in the historical, political and economic conditions that determine the meaning of images, allows her to work with these images both as material and as cultural objects.

Nelly is Looking for Closure
Nelly is Looking for Closure (2025 - ongoing) - Nelly Is Looking for Closure turns the urge to complete an image into its subject. Van Gool works with a single archival image of an eroticized young woman and shows her only in fragments: a hand, a leg, a breast, never the whole. Viewers assume Nelly is the woman, but the one looking for closure is the viewer, whose assembling impulse keeps trying to complete her. Letters written in Nelly’s voice give her a form of her own. The project has gone through a numbered amount of tests across wall works, video and spatial formats, and is moving toward a combined presentation of image assemblies, video and letters.
Cache (temporary memory)
Cache (temporary memory) (2024) - CACHE (Temporary Memory) gives physical form to consciousness, perception and imagination. Van Gool built the installation live over four hours at Pennings Foundation in Eindhoven, spreading analog collages across two walls and connecting them with red thread into a network of associations. Visitors were invited to sit within the work and became part of its making, while round mirrors placed between the images brought their reflections into it. The installation asks how images shape experience and how time contributes to the construction of memory. It remained on view after the live event, from 1 June to 24 August 2024.
WOMB//TOMB (2023)
WOMB//TOMB (2023) - WOMB//TOMB (2023) takes the womb as its subject: the organ that gives and takes life, and the expectations placed on the body that carries one. In these six mixed-media collages, flat planes of red and black cut through photographic images of the female body, withholding parts of it and rearranging what remains. The interventions are minimal and direct the reading of the body, while what they withhold is left to the viewer’s association.
IN THE BELLY (2022)
IN THE BELLY (2022) - N THE BELLY is a video work that stages perception as a cyclical and embodied process. Through looping movement, shifting scale and layered sound, the work explores how interior states and external environments continuously reorganize one another. Rather than narrating a boundary between inside and outside, it holds both in tension, allowing them to fold into each other. The video operates through repetition and subtle disruption. Visual and sonic elements nearly align, then slip. The viewer is drawn into a rhythm that suggests coherence, yet resists full resolution. The body becomes both subject and site of perception: not as image alone, but as a field in which stabilization and disorientation occur simultaneously. IN THE BELLY does not depict birth or death directly; instead, it inhabits a space of ongoing circulation. Meaning does not progress toward an endpoint but loops, intensifies and returns. The work invites viewers to experience the effort of orientation itself; to sense how coherence forms, errors and reforms within the body.
SEEDS (2020-2023)
SEEDS (2020-2023) - In these analog collages, bodies from found imagery are taken apart and reassembled from mismatched parts, sometimes with a painted intervention: a tear running from an eye, a line drawn across a face. The images never fully close, and the viewer’s urge to make a figure whole becomes part of the work. The series was presented at Haute Photographie in Rotterdam in 2023 as part of the talent program of Stichting Droom & Daad, which holds three works in its collection, and at Art The Hague in 2024.

Al-Tiba9 ISSUE21 Print Magazine

Datum:

We Are Dreamers

Datum:
Locatie: Ballon Rouge Gallery
In samenwerking met: Ballon Rouge

Codrico Factory - Rotterdam Art Week

Datum:
Locatie: Codrico Factory
In samenwerking met: Rotterdam Art Week

End of a Chapter

Datum:
Locatie: Ballon Rouge
https://www.ballonrouge.org/events

Rotterdam ART Wewek @ VLAK; 76x32x32_200x85x360

Datum:
Locatie: VLAK BUT SMALL
https://www.instagram.com/p/DIi1nejiDFT/?img_index=1

Art The Hague

Datum:
Locatie: Fokkerterminal Den Haag

CACHE (temporary memory); TalentWall 10

Datum:
Locatie: Pennings Foundation

Dive into our consciousness together with artist Alida van Gool, and investigate the role of perception in (re)creating our experiences. To what extent do images offer opportunities to capture our human spirit? What significance do images have in explaining mental processes? What role does time play in constructing memories, perception, and individuality?

On Saturday June 1, between 12:00 and 16:00, Alida will work at Pennings Foundation to install 'CACHE (Temporary Memory)': a collage i

https://www.penningsfoundation.com/en/exhibitions/talentwall-10---cache-

Taking the Long Way Home

Datum:
Locatie: The Social Hub Rotterdam
In samenwerking met: The Social Hub Rotterdam & CBK Rotterdam
https://www.thesocialhub.co/rotterdam/

Spotlight expositie Kunstuitleen Rotterdam

Datum:
Locatie: Kunstuitleen Rotterdam
In samenwerking met: Kunstuitleen Rotterdam
https://kunstuitleenrotterdam.nl/spotlight-alida-van-gool/

Rotterdam Art Week @ Borgerstraat

Datum:
Locatie: Borgerstraat 24
In samenwerking met: Borgerstraat

Voor de negende keer tijdens de Rotterdam Art Week opent het atelierpand Borgerstraat 24 haar deuren voor publiek. Tijdens deze editie wordt in de gangen en de openbare ruimtes een selectie van werk getoond van kunstenaars die geen atelier hebben en bij SKAR op de atelierwachtlijst staan. Tevens zijn 15 kunstenaar uit (het netwerk van) het Huis van de Fotografie uitgenodigd om hun werk te tonen.

https://rotterdamartweek.com/program_item/borgerstraat-open-studios/

New Chapters

Datum:
Locatie: Huis van de Fotografie
In samenwerking met: Huis van de Fotografie

Eind november komt er een einde aan het tijdperk van HVDF aan de Westersingel. Er gaat worden gerenoveerd, wat betekent dat wij helaas het pand moeten verlaten. Onze focus ligt op de toekomst, de nieuwe weg die we als HVDF inslaan. Tegelijkertijd staan we nu nog meer dan eerst, stil bij dit karakteristieke pand op deze fantastische plek in het centrum van Rotterdam. Hier hebben we de afgelopen drie jaar mooie exposities en ontmoetingen mogen realiseren en dat vooral samen met jou.

https://huisvandefotografierotterdam.nl/agenda/

ART The Hague

Datum:
Locatie: Fokker Terminal Den Haag

DE KUNSTBEURS DIE HET INTERNATIONALE KARAKTER VAN DEN HAAG TOONT, RONDLEIDINGEN EN TENTOONSTELLINGEN ORGANISEERT, KUNSTLIEFHEBBERS EN HET BEDRIJFSLEVEN BETREKT BIJ HEDENDAAGSE KUNST.

https://artthehague.nl/

Sublieme Minimale Vormtaal

Datum:
Locatie: iCOON Hoek van Holland
In samenwerking met: iCOON Hoek van Holland

Sublieme vormtaal is het uitgangspunt voor een zoektocht van een maand naar de sublieme minimale vormtaal. Wat is minimaal, wat behelst die zoektocht en wat levert het op?
Geen tentoonstelling, maar eerder een spektakel van activiteiten rondom minimale vormtaal. Natuurlijk wordt er ook werk tentoongesteld. Soms een dag, weekend of langer. Er wordt werk op locatie gemaakt, installaties krijgen een plaats in de ruimte. Ze worden opgebouwd door de maker, soms samen met enthousiaste bezoekers.

https://www.icoonhvh.nl/vormtaal/

Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend

Datum:
Locatie: Huis van de Fotografie

Altijd al een kijkje achter de schermen willen nemen in het Huis van de Fotografie? Het HVDF Collectief opent haar deuren van het atelier en de doka op 16 en 17 september tijdens het Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend. Wees nieuwsgierig en stel al je vragen aan de makers. De nieuwste werken van Alida van Gool, Annelies Diertens, Julia Pelealu, Sabine van der Vooren en Vivian Ammerlaan zijn in de expositieruimtes te zien.

Openingstijden:
16 september 11.00 – 17.00
17 september 11.00 – 17.00

https://www.grootrotterdamsatelierweekend.nl/locaties/huis-van-de-fotografie/

ON REPETITION

Datum:
Locatie: Garage Rotterdam
In samenwerking met: MESH Print Club, Garage Rotterdam

28 July - 13 August 2023, Garage Rotterdam. We are excited to announce the upcoming screen printing exhibition, "On Repetition,". The exhibition will showcase the works of emerging artists from Mesh Print Club who explore the concept of repetition in their art. The exhibition will take place at Garage Rotterdam, a medium-sized exhibition centre for contemporary art in an old Volkswagen garage.

https://onrepetition.nl/

North Sea Jazz Festival / Rotterdam Contemporary Art Fair

Datum:
Locatie: Ahoy
In samenwerking met: North Sea Jazz Festival

Op de begane grond van het festivalterrein van het North Sea Jazz Festival, is er een kunstbeurs met ruim veertien galeries uit Nederland en België en op het middenplein een beeldentuin en een opstelling van hedendaags design.

https://www.northseajazz.com/nl/2023/hudson-art-department/?_gl=1*17qvpts*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTI4NjY1Mzk0MC4xNjg3NzgzNDgz*_ga_R779CRXXYG*MTY4Nzc4MzQ4Mi4xLjAuMTY4Nzc4MzQ4Mi4wLjAuMA..

THE LAND BEHIND THE MIRROR

Datum:
Locatie: Korte Vijverberg 2
In samenwerking met: KV02 Gallery

The Land Behind The Mirror is a [lens-based] art collective formed by Alida van Gool, Katariina Kärki, Marleen Dalhuijsen, Rienk de Vries, Roald Wolters en San van Nieuwburg.

Although all members have their own distinct vision, they feel connected by the way they question reality, turn it upside down and shed new light on its appearance.

This exhibition is the first presentation of the collective.

http://thelandbehindthemirror.com/

BLACK SANDS (Rotterdam Art Week)

Datum:
Locatie: Huis van de Fotografie
In samenwerking met: Huis van de Fotografie

https://rotterdamartweek.com/program_item/black-sands-nl/

https://rotterdamartweek.com/program_item/black-sands-nl/

Haute Photografie Rotterdam 2023 (Rotterdam Art Week)

Datum:
Locatie: Keilepand
In samenwerking met: Haute Photografie
https://www.haute-photographie.com/rotterdam-2023
Expositie The Social Hub: Blue - layers of longing (werktitel)
Alida van Gool Expositie The Social Hub: Blue - layers of longing (werktitel)