INTERVIEW
In April, he was to exhibit twenty monumental statues of his legendary Cat in the streets of Paris, near the Champs-Elysées. Containment decided otherwise. The project that Philippe Geluck has been preparing for two years is "temporarily canceled", but the designer accepts it. Confined in Belgium, it tells on Europe 1 a daily newspaper not so different from the ordinary, and ensures to think a lot about the others.
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At the end of the line, Philippe Geluck has fun first. "When I announced that I was going to do this exhibition between the Champs Elysées and the Rond-Point, everyone started to say to me: 'Aren't you afraid of the yellow vests?'. I said: "First it's only on weekends, and then it's going to calm down, certainly." ", He says. "It calmed down, and I was able to say to them: 'you see, we respect my project'."
"Patatras, coronavirus"
"A little later, there were demonstrations against the pension reform", continues the Belgian designer. "And there I was told: 'But you are not afraid that they will annoy you or knock over your sculptures?'. And then it calmed down. And last December, there was a tension that suddenly felt between the United States and Iran, and I said to myself: it will fall on me, there will be a world war during my exhibition on the Champs-Elysées, which annoyed me a little..."
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"And then, thanks to this plane which inadvertently fell [a Ukrainian Boeing shot down by Iran, editor's note ], and I said to myself: it's good for me. For the whole world, but especially for my project So there I said to myself: this is going to do it, in April we are doing the exhibition. And patatras, coronavirus. So I think there is a worldwide movement against my project and it saddens me. "
"I worry about others"
And then, Philippe Geluck is more serious. To tell of its confinement in Belgium, a country "rather respectful of the rules". "I think the Belgians are a little more civic than can be this great friendly people who lives south of us ... But of course, there are people who rushed on the PQ as at home , on tuna cans and sardines, we do not remake human nature. "
He lives above his workshop, which usually welcomes collaborators, all of them teleworked. He takes advantage of his terrace. "I feel like a big privileged person, (...) I go down to the workshop every day and I work, but I have been doing this every day of my life for 40 years. "There is not much personal change. But I worry about others."
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The others are "people who are confined to 25m² apartments, two, three, four or five sometimes. I tell myself that it must be very hard to live and to go through and I take my hat off to them." But also "women victims of domestic violence, who find themselves cloistered, with an asshole in front of them. I'm afraid that there are tragedies going on right now, and there is nothing we can do, otherwise appeal to meekness, tenderness and reflection on one's own actions. "
The spirit of Philippe Geluck is also, sometimes, crossed by the dream of a "post-apocalyptic period, where half the population has disappeared and where we find ourselves in completely deserted places, like in a film". Films he now watches without an agenda, "the notion of weekends having left us a little."