Phillipe Katerine makes childish art with serious undertones

A gigantic, lumpy, shock pink giant sculpture meets visitors in the new exhibition room in Stadsgårdsterminalen beyond Slussen. It depicts Mr Pink, one of multi-artist Philippe Katerine’s alter egos. Katerine is a popular, Youtube-loved French artist, award-winning film actor and nowadays also an artist known for her mildly absurdist humor and autobiographically subversive surrealism.

During the covid pandemic, when he and his family were isolated in the countryside, he decided to transform everyday life into a dream world – often using the children’s odd toys and hobby items as tools. The result was the recently opened exhibition “Mignonisme” (roughly “sweetness” in Swedish), which is a tribute to the free imagination in the middle of ordinary reality.

– As a musician, it was difficult and rather anxiety-filled to be so isolated. But by playing with what we had at hand, such as modelling, it was after all a happy and liberating period as well, says Katerine on the phone from a film shoot, an adventure drama in Greenland where he plays opposite the popular female comedian Blanche Gardin .

You look closer on Mr Pink, you see that the round, pink giant – with many little friends around the room – has a black scar across his chest. A memory from Katerine’s childhood when he was operated on for a severe heart defect. Beneath the cute, playful surface in “Mignonisme” other, darker layers are revealed. Memories from the past marked by wounds, bodily shame and bullying.

In another part of the exhibition, there are some festively satirical photos where Katerine plays wild with her own baldness. By a kind of naive trompe l’oeil-technique, he has painted faces on his own bald head. To bite the head of shame even more, the exhibition also offers free entry for all bald people during the exhibition period.

The pink color that permeates the exhibition is also not as uncomplicated as it might seem.

– I’ve always liked pink, it’s a mixture of red, which can be blood, and white, which denotes something innocent, says Katerine.

– It is also a way to conquer a color that was forbidden to us boys when I was a child. It was unthinkable to be allowed to wear something pink, it was only blue that applied.

Elements of “Mignonism” is specially designed for Stockholm. Before the exhibition, Philippe Katerine isolated himself again for a winter month, voluntarily this time, with only his dog Zouzou for company and drawing. The idea was to only select works that were characterized by “mignonism” – that is, cute in expression but with an existential touch beneath the surface, such as anxiety about death, loneliness, violence, climate anxiety.

– I don’t know what it has to do with Sweden directly, but in the family we have always felt that we are a little Swedish in some way. When I recorded an album in Malmö a number of years ago, I really felt at home. In the same vein, my son was born a month early in France, so it was a very dramatic experience.

– I hope it will be calmer when I now get the chance to return, laughs Philippe Katerine, who is coming to Sweden in May for a “finissage” where he closes the exhibition “Mignonisme” with a live performance with a lot of music called “What I know about death, what I know of love”.

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