FELIX the Cat, a black and white cartoon character from the 1920s was used as a moving image by early technicians in America as they developed television.
Now the animated legend is appearing larger than life as a huge inflatable, becoming one of the world’s biggest felines.
Felix the Cat is one of two installations by Turner Prize-winning artist Mark Leckey being displayed at the Walker Art Gallery. The 10-meter tall blow-up version of Felix forms part of a new exhibition, ZOO LOGIC by Mark Leckey. It opens on Friday at the Walker and runs until February 26 next year.
The ten-metre-high feline is likely to raise a smile from visitors as he lazes casually within the gallery, overlooked by a range of 18th and 19th century oil paintings.
A spokeswoman for the Walker, part of the National Museums Liverpool collection, said Leckey is known for his long-standing interest in moving image and broadcast technology and, specifically, Felix the Cat.
The artist, who comes from Birkenhead and was brought up in Ellesmere Port, said it was a Felix the cat doll on a gramophone turntable, used as the first picture to be transmitted on television in America in 1928, which generated his interest in the character.
In addition to Inflatable Felix, the Walker will display FEELINTHECAT, a 70th Anniversary Arts Council Collection commission. The major new walk-in installation invites visitors to enter a large dome, shaped to resemble Felix’s head.
Inside the dome, two screens play a film which shows Mark Leckey "transforming into Felix", inspired by a photograph of a Disneyland cast member in a Mickey Mouse costume. The shape of the dome acts as a giant speaker, amplifying the sound of the film to create an immersive experience.
Explaining his interest in Felix the Cat, Leckey said: "I liked that it was a two dimensional cartoon that became a three dimensional doll, that then became this electronic entity that got broadcast out into the ether. For me, Felix symbolises the way in which technology blends the real and virtual worlds."
Mark Leckey
Leckey, who won the Turner Prize in 2008, cites a performance lecture that he gave at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London, titled ‘In the Long Tail’, as the starting point for his fascination with Felix. His lecture drew on an image he’d found on the internet of the cartoon feline, from which he discovered its origins as the first broadcast image.
After Liverpool the inflatable Felix is to make his debut in the US at a gallery in New York.
