An open air cat museum of comic proportions

Parc de Bruxelles, the lovely central park in front of the Royal Palace, has become a giant litter tray over the past year or so. An overweight anthropomorphic cat in a suit, complete with a wry, world-weary cynicism towards the absurdities of life, has made the park home and doesn’t appear to be leaving any time soon. The cat in question, known only as Le Chat, is the property of Belgian artist Philippe Geluck and has just celebrated his 40th birthday – which is a pretty old for a cat.

In truth, this is an open-air exhibition, called Le Chat Déambule or The Cat Roams, featuring one of Belgium’s most popular comic book characters. Le Chat is well know in the French speaking world after making his first appearance in Belgian newspaper, Le Soir, in 1983. His irreverent humour and deadpan take on the world made him an icon at home and won him a growing international fan base.

The open-air exhibition is a series of bronze sculptures that opened in March 2023. A sign of the popularity of Le Chat, the exhibition was to end on 30 June 2023, yet it is still there having braved the entire Belgian autumn and winter. Perhaps that is because Le Chat’s sardonic sense of humour and quirky attitude is said to offer a window into the soul of the nation.

I pass through the park on my walk to work and have seen how popular the sculptures are. People, young and old, on their own or in groups, pose with their favourite Le Chat … and the sculptures are fun. Getting Your Own Back, shows the cat crushing a car; The Birdy Builder has the cat working out with dumbells; a dog urinating (with actual running water) into a bucket is a homage to Manneken-Pis.

To a non-Belgian, the adoration heaped upon Le Chat (not to mention dozens of other comic stirp characters) is a little surprising, but his is a personality many seem to strongly identify with. This is Belgium though, where comic books have been elevated to high art and are part of the fabric of society. If the tourist board is to be believed, Belgium has the highest density of comic creators and illustrators in the world.

Given the popularity of the form in countries like Japan, with a far larger population, that is quite a statistic. It helps explain why some of the sculptures will eventually find their way into the Museum of the Cat and Humour Drawing, the brainchild of  Geluck, to be purpose built near the Palais des Beaux-Arts, or Bozar as it’s know. A new museum that is not without its controversies. Cats are not universally loved it transpires.

Work on the museum will start this year and It’s scheduled to open in 2026. It will no doubt be hugely popular with the paying public. When it was first proposed though, it went down like a lead balloon amongst artists in Brussels. The sticking point? Money and a debate on the artistic merits of Le Chat. A city with few resources was accused of putting public money into the cat museum to the detriment of other artists and venues.

The protest definitely had a whiff of ‘comic books are not real art’ snobbery about it. Almost 4,000 people went as far as to sign a petition denouncing it and demanding a rethink. High art it isn’t, but if the cat in the park is any measure, it will end up being one of the most popular museums in Brussels.