All My Friends Are Wild: The Art of Kati Heck
“I didn’t know anything about this country,” Kati Heck says of moving to Belgium some twenty years ago. “My mom thought it was a good place, Antwerp.” The artist, who was raised in Germany, moved with her best friend (who now appears in Heck’s films) and attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. “It’s crazy that there are many famous artists who were in Antwerp. I mean, Van Gogh was there,” she says. “It’s such a little town with such an amazing energy or something that draws artistic people in.”
The city proved to be creatively inspiring for Heck too. “If I look at it now, it was a good move,” she says. “When I moved to Antwerp, it was pretty wild. You could do whatever you wanted, it seemed like. There were no rules.”
In the years that have passed since that major life change, Heck has built an immense body of work that crosses disciplines, from painting to sculpture to film. She has shown extensively, working closely with Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp and having had solo shows in New York, London, and Los Angeles. Two years ago, she moved to the countryside, about twenty minutes away from Antwerp. That’s had an effect on her art as well. She has a large garden now and can paint or take photos outside. “Before that, I did it in my studio with artificial lighting,” she says.
Everything that you do in a day—what you cook and which bird comes along on your terrace—could play a role in the painting or the movie or whatever you’re working on.”
In May 2019, Heck’s most recent solo show opened at Antwerp’s Tim Van Laere Gallery. Titled All My Friends Are Wild, the collection was inspired in part by the work of academic Donna Haraway, whose writings look at science, feminism, and the future in a way that has impacted transhumanism philosophies.
Heck was intrigued by the “Dadaistic approach” in Haraway’s work and thought that would be a good launchpad for her fourth solo show with Tim Van Laere Gallery, and the first show at the venue’s new space.
She settled on All My Friends Are Wild as the title because it could have multiple meanings. “I like that it’s almost stupid sounding. Then you can also imagine different things with it,” she says.
The title makes an appearance in a textile piece, “Festplakat (All my friends are wild),” which features three panels. In the center panel, the head of a robot faces mouth-up under the teats of a dog, who itself has a purple-tipped paintbrush for a tail. At 296 cm x 701 cm, the full piece is quite large and is made of cotton. Heck thought of the piece as if it were an old blanket found in a cellar and turned into a banner for a protest march, although she didn’t want to refer to it as a protest sign in the show; she wanted to keep the vibe positive. “My idea was that people come to the show and leave with a good feeling,” she says.
For this exhibition, Heck also created a bronze sculpture called “Sahfrau,” of a woman-wolf spreading seeds. It’s inspired in part by a painting of a “seeding woman” that she had previously made. The earlier painting, though, was a self-portrait, while the bronze is not. “It’s uncomfortable if you’re an artist and you’re always making sculptures of yourself,” she says. “I felt uncomfortable.” Instead, she relied on a “universal woman” to do the seeding.
The head of the sculpture features a woman’s face in the front and a wolf’s in the back, which was inspired by Herman Hesse’s novel Steppenwolf, of being “split up in your character, between the bourgeois life and the wolf inside of you.” The woman, she explains, could be “seeding ideas or good thoughts.”
I always hope that the problem is solved when I wake up and look at a painting, but of course, it’s not.”
One painting, “Tafelrunde: Wässerung,” depicts an eclectic crowd gathered around a table. The group includes a girl, an old man, an anthropomorphic caterpillar, a dog, and a robot—who are all seated. Joining them is a fish lodged upright
in a glass, looking more like a guest than a meal. There’s a doorbell fixed to the frame of the painting. “This table situation comes back many times in my work,” says Heck. “I always like to put people together on a table and make dinner parties for friends where we can discuss things.”
At nineteen, Heck began her study of painting. It was, she says, a fairly traditional experience, moving from still life to life drawing. By her third year in art school, she deduced that she wouldn’t be able to paint everything she imagined. With that in mind, she started making costumes to use in performances. She took up photography as well. All of these different disciplines come together in her practice and keeps her from becoming too isolated in her work. “Painting is very lonely,” she says. With, for example, a movie, she can work alongside friends in a collaborative way. “It’s exciting,” she seats. “It balances out the loneliness.”
Heck’s friends are often the models in her paintings as well. At the very least, the models are people she knows. She says bluntly, “Painting can take up to two months and I want to make sure that I don’t paint an asshole.”
The model selection process is different each time. Sometimes, she’s so fascinated by certain people that she will specifically want to paint them. Other times, she has an idea and will think about who is the best person for the role. “It’s almost like a movie casting,” she says.
Film is another aspect of Heck’s work. “Everything is kind of autobiographical or very connected to my life,” she says of her movies. She’ll have ideas for scenes, maybe a bit of dialogue, in her head. “I like that it’s mostly improvisational. I count on my actors to help me,” she says. Heck and her collaborators will work quickly, sometimes a week or less, to make the films. “We are all together, living in my house, cooking together and filming the scenes,” she says. “It’s very intense.”
Her method for filmmaking is a practical one. “If you don’t have everything planned out, then you need to talk about stuff. Also, it’s the same process as my painting,” she says. “Everything that you do in a day—what you cook and which bird comes along on your terrace—could play a role in the painting or the movie or whatever you’re working on. That’s important for me somehow, that we all go through this together.”
Painting can take up to two months and I want to make sure that I don’t paint an asshole.”
Heck doesn’t use Instagram. She says that she’s “not into phone and computer stuff.” Plus, the galleries that she works with do a good job with their own socials. “I don’t feel the need to present myself because they do it for me. I’m very glad that they do this and they do it amazingly,” she says. Tim Van Laere, for example, takes photos with her and posts them. “Then it’s fun for me. It would be weird to stage something for Instagram. I would rather make work and then somebody else posts it. I’m not so interested in presenting myself. It would stress me out, I think.”
Heck works daily, adding that her schedule is more structured now that she has a daughter. She often listens to audiobooks in the studio. Language is influential on her work as well, particularly since Heck is a German living in Belgium. “If you move to another country, your language gets stuck exactly at the moment where you left your country, so I’m probably talking in ’90s German,” she explains. “I didn’t follow up with the evolution of the language. It’s something precious, but it also becomes something that you can play with because there are no rules anymore to a language. I like to make new word combinations and play with language and do some detective work in the language.”
One important part of her daily regimen is a nap after lunch. “I have a bed in my studio,” she says. “I call it going to my bureau.”
It’s a necessary break to help rejuvenate her creativity mid-day. “I also strongly believe that when you’re taking a nap—or sleeping or dreaming or something—you get ideas or new thoughts. I always hope that the problem is solved when I wake up and look at a painting, but of course, it’s not,” she says. Moreover, she adds, “I do believe that sometimes you have to stare. Sometimes, you have to get bored.”
There’s a spontaneity to how and what Heck creates too that leaves her future artistic possibilities open-ended. “I have no idea where I’m going. It’s natural. It flows,” she says, adding that she would like to continue working with fabric, perhaps dying her own in the process. “I like things when they’ve lived a little bit, maybe the fabric has to hang out a little bit in my garden, have some bird shit on it or something,” she says with a laugh. “It has to live with me a little bit, then it becomes more exciting to me.”*
This article first appeared in Hi-Fructose issue 54, which is sold out. Support what we do and get our latest issue as part of a print subscription here!
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