Brecht Heytens
n his practice as a sculptor /installation maker Brecht Heytens always looks for a relation with the space and the matter.
The spacial relationship can be with an exhibition space, the studio or public space. Brecht believes that an installation can have a physical impact on the space and the viewer. It can make people experience the space differently and bring focus to an aspect of the room or area that is normally noteworthy.
For making an installation he usually returns to rudimentary materials, because he believes in the personality of the matter. Every material has its own characteristics and physical limitations. It’s by combining deferent materials that Brecht tries to create an aesthetic story. This story usually starts by creating a challenge. This can be an aesthetic challenge or a practical one. Anyway it needs to be resolved.
An installation is then a combination of answers to that challenge.
Within an artwork Brecht seeks for physical tension, this he tries to accomplish by playing with physical laws like gravity, mass, counter mass and limits of materials.
His relationship with the matter expresses itself by trying to controle it. But there is always a point where the matter becomes uncontrollable. Its because the characteristics of the material don’t allow to be manipulated the way he wants to. Brecht thinks thats the interesting part of the creating proces. It is coming across those limitation and finding solutions for it. And the way those solutions are shaped, determine how the artwork will look like in the end.
Brecht does also believe that an artwork should speak for itself. It should visually and physically interesting. A viever should be triggered by appearance of the work to look closer. There is off course always a concept, a larger story. But he does not believe a viewer needs to be told what to see. It is the work that can reveal itself and all the layers, just by being it.
