SUPER DEMOCRACY - The Senate of Things

Three cultural institutions enter into a dialogue with the Belgian Senate during the exhibition SUPERDEMOCRACY, which is on display throughout October. BPS22 in Charleroi, BOZAR in Brussels and M HKA in Antwerp provide a cultural dimension to the Senate’s current issues.

1.10.2017 - 31.10.2017

SUPERDEMOCATIE / SUPERDEMOKRATIE / SUPERDEMOCRACY

Zonder titel (Broodkruis) [Untitled (Bread Cross)], 1981
Sculpture , 118 x 118 x 4 cm
bread, wood

Much of the work of René Heyvaert revolves around a confrontation of the banal and the elevated, of the everyday and the exceptional. On the one hand he treats motifs or symbols that surpass the particular, like the cross or abstract patterns. On the other hand, he gives expression using ordinary, household items or organic materials that he finds around him and collects, like shoes, tablecloths and colorful wallpaper, for instance. By confronting these two, both the specificity of the materials is emphasised, as the mental and mathematical human intervention. This leads to the creation of sober, modest works, which at the same time contain a subversive element. Untitled (Bread Cross) is such a work: the loaded symbol of the cross (for that matter, also a mathematical symbol!) is here formed by something as simple as our daily bread.