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Item: Zonder titel (Broodkruis) [Untitled (Bread Cross)]

1981

Sculpture, 118 x 118 x 4 cm.
Materials: bread, wood

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. S0393).

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.