
Openness and tranparency are the magic words of today.


The words themselves should guarantee us complete insight in what is usually as full and murky as possible.

It means we are given the idea that we know everything about which we know nothing (or about which we are not meant to know anything).

While in the world of objects and space we know perfectly well that complete openness and transparency are just tools and do not mean that things are completely open and transparent.


A completely open space may be full of meaning just by its shape and the material it is made of.

It might be open, but is it transparent, if it is so full of meaning?


A reflection on a shiny object may change the shape of the object and of the things it reflects.

As such it is completely open and transparent in doing so, but in the end it’s our own eyes that see the reflection and make the new shape it causes.

Wido Blokland (1966), in his present introductory exhibition at Galerie Ramakers, shows some works that are reflective by themselves, while others may be reflective even though they have no mirroring or shiny surfaces.


They are spread throughout the space of the gallery.

Ramakers usually has an air of openness and transparency and Blokland’s works seem to reflect that in their present constellation.

This blog only shows a few aspects of individual objects, but the way they are shown in the gallery gives you a complete constellation of which you yourself become part, and in which the objects become intrinsically interwoven..


It goes to show that openness and tranparency are indeed just tools to create fullness and opacity.

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© Villa Next Door 2021
Contents of all photographs courtesy to Wido Blokland and Galerie Ramakers, Den Haag
Bertus Pieters
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