At the opening of his retrospective exhibition at La Criée, Willem picked up his marker to draw a picture on the art center’s wall. He depicts the Grand Guignol-esque characters who run our country. Jospin, Chirac, Alliot-Marie, Hue, Seguin, and even Tibéri are engaged in what appears to be their favorite sport: fighting. They bite each other, pull each other’s hair, or pinch each other’s noses. With irony—and not without accuracy—Willem depicts the dirty tricks and settling of scores among the political class that are reported daily in the press and on television.
Alexandra Gillet
“Politics—the affairs of the city—cannot exist for Willem without this carnivalesque transgression, this grotesque that overturns established values. As in Ensor’s work, on these masks of power, the few smiles are macabre in that they foreshadow the Great Leap—the frozen grimace of the skeleton.
By highlighting the laughable vanity of any quest for domination, the cartoonist seems intent on provoking the general outburst of laughter that will save humanity. Through the power of black ink, the party organ thus becomes a sausage. The assholes of this or that political party or terrorist splinter group are literally laid bare before us. Man is a wolf or a tube for man—it depends on your perspective. The outside world is a jungle. Folds, rolls of fat, vaginas, breasts, double chins, buttocks, bald spots, teeth, and testicles are here signs of the fascination our species holds for Willem. The myriad forms our species takes do not prevent a shared fate: annihilation. “Houdon’s *L’écorché* can go pack its bags.”
Tanitoc, « Willem, dessinateur presse », Tout est politique, Rennes, éditions électriques, La Criée centre d’art contemporain, 2001
Production : La Criée centre d'art contemporain, Rennes
