René Heyvaert

René Heyvaert occupies a singular position in postwar visual art: he is a seminal yet under-recognised figure of the 1970s Belgian avant-garde, which included peer artists such as Marcel Broodthaers, Raoul De Keyser, and Jef Geys. Heyvaert’s multifaceted oeuvre strove to address the human experience of the constructed world through small, subjective, and subversive acts.

Trained officially as an architect and having worked previously at architectural firms in Memphis and Denver in the early 1960s, Heyvaert dedicated himself entirely to art from 1970 onwards upon his return to Europe. He developed a multifaceted body of work spanning drawing, collage, photography, sculpture, and mail art. Using string, wallpaper, envelopes, or tape, he performed quiet transformations that complexified the supposedly clear-cut boundaries between design, art, and life.

Heyvaert’s position as a shrewd observer of and participant in art history is also manifested in his attraction to the fields of geometric abstraction and Hard-edge painting. He appropriated certain visual codes, albeit in his singular – and perhaps less affirmative – manner, favouring gouache on paper rather than the traditionally sacred space of the canvas. Extremely prolific, Heyvaert continued until his last days to find respite from physical and psychological struggles through drawing in particular, which he compared to a form of meditation.

While often associated with historical art movements such as Arte Povera, Fluxus, and Minimalism, Heyvaert’s positioning was truly unique, approaching art making through a deeply personal lens, informed by his lived experiences, travels, and inquisitive nature. Forty years after his death, his work continues to inspire a new generation of artists and architects alike for its capacity to find poetry in simplicity and beauty in the everyday, affirming once and for all his position as a major figure within the Belgian avant-garde. Alongside a vast archive of drawings, objects, paintings, and ephemera, Heyvaert also conceived and built ten houses during his lifetime, including the revered Heyvaert House in Destelbergen – a key manifestation of his approach to materials and space, and a source of inspiration and counterpoint for architects to this day.