The pandemic has not spared the Belgian designer Philippe Geluck, creator of the "Cat". He was forced to postpone for a year an exhibition of monumental cats which was planned for the spring on the avenue des Champs-Elysées in Paris, the artist says he took advantage of the confinement to tidy up his Brussels studio from top to bottom.
Read also: Philippe Geluck: "I need to escape from the Cat to show that I can do something else"
He also hopes that this period will have made it possible to "think differently" and to envisage a world without "excessive production" or " hyper consumption" .
How have you experienced this period of confinement since mid-March?
Philippe GELUCK. - I am very lucky, I work in a magnificent workshop (a ground floor at the back of the courtyard, spacious and bright with canopies, editor's note) and I live three floors above. I was not stuck, I could go back and forth. And I even managed to attract my wife to the workshop to tidy up, to make order. You cannot imagine what I have been able to accumulate here in 15 years. Everything was hidden in cupboards, I classified everything and I found documents which will be very welcome for the future Cat museum (planned in Brussels at the earliest in 2023). This time has been very helpful.
The virus has killed 9,500 people in Belgium. How to consider the humorous drawing on such a serious subject?
Those who know my background know that I like trash, disturbing, incisive humor. They know that this type of humor is also part of me. There I did not want to be clever with gore stuff at all. I could have, monstrous ideas came to my mind, but I prevented myself from drawing them because I did not want people who suffered from this crisis to take a blow by reading my drawings.
I have obliged myself to treat the subject in a fraternal manner, friendly to the victims. I had to convey positive messages even if I denounced certain things (the Chat was in particular in solidarity with the poorly paid caregivers or castigated the violence done to women, note). Yes I am self-censored but in a freely consented manner.
What is the main lesson for you from this pandemic?
I've always heard that the economy is life, to live well is to consume even to screw the planet up in the air ... Basically, it was not possible to curb this race for production excessive and hyper consumption. However, there we had proof that it was perfectly possible to stop!
We must realize that we are going into the wall with the current system ... The pandemic was a kind of wall which forced us to mark the stop before we take the real big wall. There are different ways to cross this wall; we can smash it, pass in force and continue to restart as before. But we can also think about the wall 50 times larger behind it.
What horizon after the crisis?
We must take advantage of this moment to reinvent a fairer, less polluting world. We have the means to do it! The world can continue to turn without there being thousands of planes flying all over the place every day. Inventing part of the teleworking work to limit travel in a car is possible! We were deprived of consumer goods for two and a half months and we did not die. In fact, what Greta Thunberget I called our wishes was achieved with a snap of the fingers (big smile).