M.Chat… Interview | Alexandre Gilbert #279

Mr. Chat is real cool, no front and Burguier Rigail joint is tight, but street art’s meant to be out there on the walls, free and raw, no cap. (Jérôme Mesnager)

Mr Chat (≠ from Mr A), is a swiss post-graffiti artist.

M.Chat is a chimera inspired by Picasso’s dove, a sphinx echoing the winged lion of Venice, you said.
Mr Chat: I’m not a Cézanne whose father was a banker. The goal in art is to monetize my mediocre talent—because let’s face it, we can talk about mediocre talent—with doctors, pharmacists, politicians, people with money. That allows me to buy groceries. It’s very, very simple, the painter’s job. You just have to sell paintings.

You studied in Orléans and worked with Chris Marker, and the Centre Pompidou.
Mr Chat: : They got the wrong person. They must have thought they were working with someone else.

Your paintings fill Montmartre
Mr Chat: : I know Montmartre and Van Gogh. Living in Saint-Ouen, I see the Sacré-Cœur every morning. Luckily, my paintings sell pretty well. That’s why I allow myself to be a bit ironic. Things aren’t going that badly. It’s the only stance left: cynicism, irony. Take things lightly, or else…

The irony of the Cheshire Cat.
Mr Chat: : The devil is in the details and painting is very debilitating, actually. People don’t realize. But spending all day in front of a canvas, like a prisoner, doesn’t help you stay intelligent.

It’s a solitude, above all.
Mr Chat: : Painting dulls you, let’s not kid ourselves. It’s an alienation. Especially today, the only interest is earning a living to go on vacation with your kids or whatever, and in the end, as soon as you talk about money, you come off as a… what’s it called? An opportunist? A profiteer.

Pop art and graffiti were above all about money.
Mr Chat: : From the beginning, those guys were in it for cash. That’s what money is for: it creates relationships. It lets you cut in front because you’re buying a croissant or whatever. No croissant? You’re stuck outside, begging.

Real graffiti, no stencils, never accepted you.
Mr Chat: : I’m post-graffiti. My intellectual property advisor, told my dealer I have a baroque spirit.”

More Post modern than “Baroque”, ironic indeed.
Mr Chat: : I’m not part of the infantry. If you like the romantic vision of the artist who commits suicide or sacrifices everything, betrays their own community, their own family, emancipates themselves from all that, yeah, in that logic, I’m not in that at all, that’s for sure.

Who’s your favorite painter or musician ?
Mr Chat: : I love all painters, except the living ones. I prefer old senile one. There’s something to exchange. We’re not just fighting over 1,000 bucks, 2,000 bucks, 3,000 bucks, 10,000 bucks, whatever. I’m not interested in art anymore, it’s awful. I think painting has disgusted me. When you’re disgusted by the profession, that’s it. I’m part of a generation of sellouts, and even the most… the toughest of this movement, this pre-movement that was graffiti, they’re all there when money is offered in the market. No, we don’t care about art, actually. Art history is beautiful, it’s cute. I love it, it’s fascinating. But the question is, what can replace the economic, since today, the economy, even as a science, absorbs everything.

Electro music and Graffiti collapsed 10 years ago. That’s why you have URSSAF on your back.
Mr Chat: : URSSAF is for when you’re poor and communist. Studying makes you a socialist, and if you make a bit of money, you’re a social traitor. I embrace that betrayal.

A black cat.
Mr Chat: : I take, I eat, and I leave, as they say…

A Swiss guard.
Mr Chat: : No. But it’s funny that you mention Switzerland.

Art Basel is still contemporary art world’s capital.
Mr Chat: : Were we also… at the origin of founding Jerusalem? That blew my mind.

Vasarely also lived in Neuchâtel.
Mr Chat: : I have a problem with intellectualism. By the way, I lost the mother of my kids, who was a filmmaker and made a film called Marker Program. And at one point, buddy-buddy with the producer, I ended up saying, friends, it’s still my biography that’s the basis of the product that you exploited. And yet, they don’t listen to my point of view. Sorry—that’s unrelated.

What about the Credit Suisse ?
Mr Chat: : I’m a social traitor. Credit Suisse? That was UBS, actually, who got robbed by the Corsicans, with Charles Pasqua covering it.

Credit Suisse captured 35 billion in Nazi gold funds
Mr Chat: : But who put it there? What’s really awful is that the Swiss chose which Jews to save. At that time, if you were Swiss, you were Swiss before being Jewish. Over time, if you were Jewish, you became “crétin… sorry, chrétien”. The people from Neuchâtel, the Vaudois—the French who escaped the Republic or the Kingdom of France, however you see it—we call them Vaudois. They were neighbors of the Neuchâtelois. The Swiss had already calculated how many places were left—how many people they could take in. Rationalists, like the Japanese. So they said: okay, this many people, preferably young or women. Same thing they’re doing now with Ukrainians. And it’s the European Community that forced their hand. That reminds me of something else: long ago, I heard Westerners mistranslated the Quran, because we don’t speak Arabic. And that’s the Swiss again—well, the Lutherans, really. They translated it, but badly. “La Suisse a bon dos”. They got massacred a lot during the wars. It was common. But hey—they’re not Turks. They’re the scapegoats.

People know Daft Punk faces now, not yours.
Mr Chat: : Marker told me, no need to hide. “Why are you hiding? You haven’t killed anyone.”

Flaubert used to hide.
Mr Chat: : It goes back to that. Live happily, live hidden. That’s the bourgeois principle. When you’re initiated, you’re initiated. On the other hand, what I have in common with the initiated is that I don’t really like pedagogy. It wears you down. It stains you. Because then people blame you for not teaching them properly.

It’s infantilizing.
Mr Chat: : No, no, no. Because when you speak a bit of German, or have a German cousin, you know you can make non-verbal sentences. And you know: a son is worth an uncle is worth a father. We’re not in a hierarchy. It’s horizontal. Not like the Catholic, pyramidal one. So giving knowledge isn’t the problem. The problem is when people use it against you. That’s what’s annoying. In a horizontal structure, there’s no replacement. It’s the vertical that creates rivalry. That’s the painting—The Baptism of Clovis. That starts the series on display at the Hôtel Palafitte right now (in Neuchâtel). And the style? It’s not street art at all. It’s more like figuration libre.

Figuration libre, not baroque. And street art doesn’t really sell anymore, does it?
Mr Chat: : The Rammellzee exhibition did well. Bando doesn’t need money. Bando is hot. They don’t need cash. It’s chic. It’s in vogue.

An art for kids ?
Mr Chat: : Young adults, still. My kids are more into a tree-like style than graffiti. It’s the branches that meet.